Lifted
by Runawaymetaphor
Summary: It's one thing to be lifted in position, taking the second chair out of necessity, in Tuvok and Chakotay's absence. But it's another altogether for him to feel like he's climbing the rank ladder by using their corpses as a step stool.
1. Basic math

**Lifted**

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><p>"<em>[Stella Adler] used to say to me, "Darling, you know you're going to have many men; you're going to have many men and you're going to be up and<br>you're going to be down; you're going to be rich and you're going to be poor, and you're going to fuck and you're not going to fuck, and you're going to  
>laugh and you're not going to laugh. And I'm going to tell you one thing, and I'm going to tell you straight. Only the work will lift you up." And she<br>was right. Only the work has lifted me up. . . So I'm blessed and cursed at the same time. More blessed."_

-Kate Mulgrew

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><p><strong>Chapter 1: Basic math <strong>

As crushing as it is when they have to use fatal force to subdue Tuvok and so the alien entity that posses him, more torturous for the crew is the painful two-day process of incorporating Chakotay's consciousness back into his body.

All of the Doctor's efforts culminate in a prone form that has no brain activity, kept alive by artificial means.

The Doctor folds his arms in front of himself, effected despite the mere photons he's made of, and goes into his office while B'Elanna sits next to Chakotay's body.

"He wouldn't want to be like this," B'Elanna whispers, several minutes after Janeway enters but stands silent. Staring at the motionless form that will never again animate.

"I know," the Captain agrees solemnly. "We'll honor him. His spirit."

. . . . .

Tom disappears shortly after the funeral services, slipping from the side of Harry's contemplative silence to the quiet of his own quarters.

Despite his differences with Chakotay, he respected the Commander as well as Tuvok. He feels, too, for the former Maquis, their raw pain evident as Janeway spoke solemnly of her fallen First Officer's compassion, his courage.

More heartbreaking than her eulogy of Chakotay, however, was the way she stood silently next to Tuvok's coffin. Her eyes filled with tears she wouldn't shed in public.

He'd thought about going to her after that. Standing beside her as a show of support or maybe placing a comforting hand on her shoulder, the way she's done any number of times in their months out here. But he didn't. Too selfish- too cowardly- to push through the fears that suddenly circled him, standing there in the cargo bay. Unable to contain the panic that caused him to quit Harry's side as soon as he was able, hiding away in his quarters.

Whatever Paris' academic shortcomings in the Academy, he is more than able to count to four. He's the next in line.

When his door chimes several hours later, he's deep in thought in his living room, his uniform jacket and boots discarded beside a chair.

"Come," he says softly, watching as the light streaks past his viewport.

He's surprised when he realizes that it's the Captain rather than Harry, but he stands the moment he sees her. She waves off his formality with a dismissive gesture. A small movement, but one whose inelegant execution manages to reveal the depth of her exhaustion.

He offers her a seat, but after that isn't sure what to say to her, this woman who has now lost two officers on top of the dozens she did when they were ripped for the Alpha Quadrant; who only hours earlier shot into space her friend of more than ten years.

"Can I get you some coffee?" he asks, his face more open than usual.

"Yes. . . Coffee would be. . . nice."

When he hands her the mug she wraps both of her hands around it but doesn't take a sip. Looking at its contents as though it's a nebula she's deciding whether or not to map .

He wondered, hoped, that when she first walked in she'd come to tell him that she was passing him over. Kim and Torres are already senior staff, but neither are options she would consider for First Officer. Still, there's Ayala, who on top of being a Lieutenant was Chakotay's second in command before _Voyager_.

Sitting across from her, he can tell that she isn't here explain why she's passing him over. And while a small part of him feels some sense of relief that she trusts him more than he might have thought, the rest of him is frozen with panic.

"They aren't going to trust me," he says, after they've sat a few minutes in complete silence.

"You've already begun to earn their trust. You'll earn the rest of it still."

She means what she's saying, but the fact that she won't look at him reveals her own misgivings. He tries to push away his own selfish concerns, even if with great difficulty.

"I could drag you down. . . If they don't trust your First Officer, it could take its toil on your command. Morale."

She pauses for a moment, sipping her coffee before finally meeting his eyes.

"Are you declining?"

"No," he says, hanging his head. "I'm just making sure you've considered all of your options. . . You could ask Ayala."

"It would look like I was skipping over you in favor of having a token Maquis."

"Ayala would hardly be a token. He has command experience. A hell of lot more than me."

She leans back in her chair, casting her eyes around the room before settling on him again.

"I don't trust him the way I do you," she confesses. "Which isn't to say that I distrust him. . . I just don't know him the way I already know you."

He nods, flooding with understanding.

Ayala is like Chakotay in his deep sense of honor and commitment, but unlike Chakotay, Ayala's characteristic silence has likely left Janeway with misgivings. He sympathizes. Despite his time with the man in the Maquis, Tom doesn't even know where he stands with the somber security officer. Most days, Tom doesn't want to know.

"So what now?" he asks, at some point later.

"You'll need to get up to speed on personnel and ship administration. Ensign Baytart will take over as Chief Conn Officer."

"I'm still the best pilot you have," he cautions.

It's a statement that reveals his own sense of loss more than his doubt in Baytart. He's only just gotten a ship to fly and he's being ripped away from the helm.

"I'm sure we could find time to work the ship's First Officer into the rotation now and again."

She smiles as she says it, but the amusement doesn't make it up to her eyes. She's still shielding him as an officer and he doesn't think to stop her. It's a routine that will be harder for her to break than him.

He nods slowly, and she eventually rises, setting down the coffee mug.

"We'll talk tomorrow morning. Come to my ready room when you report for your shift."

"Captain," he says hesitantly, stopping her just before she reaches his door. "Are you sure you don't want to take a day?"

She looks at him searchingly, her face betraying nothing at first. After a few beats, her expression softens.

"We'll talk tomorrow morning," she repeats, but before she turns to go she adds, "thanks for the coffee, Tom."

. . . . .

When she finds Tom in the mess hall in the wee hours of the morning, he's bleary eyed and working through a stack of PADDs.

"How long have you been here?" she asks, taking note of his rumpled appearance.

"What hour is it? No, what day is it?"

She chuckles as he rubs his eyes with his hands, the trace of a rueful smile appearing on his face.

After three months, they're still figuring out most of their working relationship. But the levity in private- this was the first thing to come.

"It's after 02:00," she says, slipping into a seat across from him. "You should sleep at some point."

"It's 02:00?" he asks with surprise. "I stayed here after dinner. . . Didn't realize five hours had gone by."

"You went to dinner at 19:00," she informs him, "so you've been at it for six hours, at least."

He only shrugs, getting up to fill his coffee and grabbing her a cup as well.

"If you can't do basic math anymore, you should probably pack it in. I can't imagine B'Elanna's engineering report will resonate at this point."

She hides her smirk behind the mug he hands her, and he pulls a face at her mention of B'Elanna's engineering report.

"I saved it for last," he confesses. Realizing now this was a mistake.

"Always read the engineering report first," she says firmly, a rueful expression on her face.

She won't comment out loud (yet) on how unnecessarily dense Torres' reports are. But it's something that initially took Tom by surprise, having expected the fiery engineer to be as lively in writing as she is in person.

When he realized how mistaken he was, he started shuffling the engineering report to the bottom. His feeling of accomplishment often coupled with one of dread, as he worked his way down the pile.

"Now you tell me," he drawls presently, propping his tired head up with his arms. "Three months in."

"Well I can't tell you everything, Lieutenant," she teases, her face the picture of innocence.

The matter of his rank was one of some discussion between them. She felt the promotion should come with a change in title, but Tom's profound discomfort with the idea had stopped her in her tracks.

It's one thing to be lifted in position, taking the second chair out of necessity, in Tuvok and Chakotay's absence. But it's another altogether for him to feel like he's climbing the rank ladder by using their corpses as a step stool. He is, without a doubt, still tied down by the memory of three other dead officers; the guilt and self-loathing that has remained with him long after his official punishment ended.

"I would be happy with knowing half of everything," he retorts.

He's somewhat joking, but he's also being honest about how overwhelmed he is. He knows he's too young and inexperienced to be the First Office of a starship, and sometimes he finds himself clinging to his chair on the bridge like it's about to buck him off.

Still, he's tried to bury himself in the work, learning about departments whose functioning he was previously unfamiliar with. Figuring out, with painstaking slowness, how to create a duty roster than doesn't send the department heads into a tizzy. Especially Torres.

"You're doing well," she assures him, touching his arm briefly. "Much better than I would be doing in your situation."

The dry chuckle he lets out as he buries his face in his hands is both self-deprecating and skeptical.

"I so doubt that," he says, still laughing. "I mean is there anything you aren't good at?"

Only a few months early the question would be paired with a mischievous look or maybe a saucy tone. But sitting across from her now, he feels the weight of his position bearing down on him. His inappropriate brand of humor, however often it still manifests, is now of more consequence.

"Tom, a galaxy-class starship couldn't contain all the things I've failed at," she says, honestly.

"Name one."

"Sleeping through the night."

He chuckles again, this time without the dryness.

"I don't think that counts," he points out.

"No?" she asks, raising an eyebrow. "Well, you try to remember that sentiment when you're sitting next to me tomorrow for a nine-hour shift."

Eventually they both still, and Janeway looks at Paris softly.

"The rest is going to come," she assures him. "So much of it already has."

He looks at her with contemplation, running his finger around the rim of his cup.

"Do you think. . . there will ever be a day when I'm the one assuring you, instead of the other way around?"

She smiles, tilting her head to the side.

"Yes," she confirms softly, "and I imagine it will come sooner than I would like."

. . . . .

When Tom enters the mess hall for lunch, he feels the same wave of dread he always feels in this situation. He used to eat with Harry, and still mostly does, but his relationship with the Ensign has slipped more toward awkward than comfortable. He finds Harry forcing a laugh even when he doesn't think a joke is funny. Or else, when Tom makes an offer-color joke, looking on with more horror than usual.

"Relax, Harry. It's just me," he'd laughed uneasily, two months earlier.

Kim had nodded and smiled, but there was something about the way he looked at Tom afterward that made it clear he hadn't really heard him.

Now, looking at the mess hall, it would be a relief to find Harry's uneasy smile waiting for him.

The room isn't very crowded, though Torres and two engineers are at one table in the center, while Ayala and a few former Maquis sit off in a corner. The latter group seems to look through him and the Chief Engineer openly bristles.

Only the day before, he and B'Elanna had their first out and out argument since he became First Officer. To Tom's relief, it took place in engineering rather than in a briefing, but news of it quickly traveled all the way up to Deck One.

"I know she's not making it easy on you, but the two of you have to figure this out," the Captain warned later that day, sitting in her ready room. He'd only managed to nod in response.

Unlike Harry, B'Elanna hasn't walked on eggshells around him, and it's something he's found oddly comforting, everyone else on the ship seeming to be a bit too kind of him, or else more disdainful than before. A kind of understanding having been reached with the half-Klingon, however silently, after their experience in Vadiian captivity, B'Elanna occasionally snarling at him in her usual way is something Tom found a relief. Initially.

But at the end of the day, Torres is still Torres. And she resents the hell out of the fact that he's now giving her orders. When he vetoed something that she'd proposed yesterday, she finally exploded.

Looking back at the altercation, Tom realizes that a good portion of it was his fault. He hadn't voiced his thoughts in a diplomatic way and, worse, he shot B'Elanna down in front of her staff. A year earlier, she probably would have punched him.

Settling at an empty table by himself, he feels grateful that he thought to bring a PADD with him. He'll look less pathetic with work in hand.

When Janeway strides in ten minutes after Paris, it doesn't take her long to spot her First Officer sitting by himself. The sight pulls at her. She's keenly aware of how lonely the number one can be.

"Working through lunch?" she asks casually, sitting down beside him.

He only looks at her out of a sense of decorum. A sense that has eluded him much of his life, but now looms ominously before him.

"Something like that," he responds, going back to his work. "What are you doing down here- the Doctor threaten you with more vitamin supplements?"

"No," she retorts, putting weight behind the one word. "I just. . . "

He meets her eyes when her voice trails off, and she realizes she doesn't want to lie to him. Not when he's sitting alone at a table, looking at her with an open face.

"Had to get off the bridge," she finishes, her voice low.

"Strange that it sometimes feels like a prison," he notes.

She observes the slight bitterness that comes with the statement, disappearing shortly afterward.

"The furniture is a little more comfortable than most prisons'," she observes, trying to lighten the mood.

"True." He pauses, looking at his tray. "But back in Auckland we didn't have Neelix's cooking."

She begins to laugh, the smattering of crew present in the room starting to watch them when a smile appears on their Captain's face.

"At least we get to boss people around?" she quips.

"That part doesn't seem to be going well for me."

As the smile slips from his face she hesitates, throwing a glance at the engineer who now studiously avoids looking at them.

"Have you talked to Lieutenant Torres yet?"

He knows she's asking a question she already knows the answer to, and so he makes her wait as he picks at his tray.

"Not yet. . . I'm going to give her a few days to cool off. She won't accept an apology if I go to her with it now."

"She shouted at you in public," she warns. "I don't know how much of an apology you should give her as her CO."

In a certain sense, she's right. But Tom isn't one to lean too heavily on protocol and they both that isn't going to change.

"I handled the conversation inappropriately," he admits. "Tempers flared because of that. I'll go to her with an apology, then the conversation can go from there."

She looks at him with obvious doubt and he looks back at her with confidence. He knows B'Elanna better than she does, after all.

"Trust me," he says, taking a sip of his beverage.

She nods, allowing her worry to abate slightly.


	2. No apologies

**Chapter 2: No apologies **

Readying the table for dinner with Tom, the Captain clears the space of work while contemplating her working relationship with the officer who's on his way.

It's hard to define, the balance they've managed to find over the last year. Especially as she argues more often with him than any officer she's ever had.

It wasn't their pattern at first; Tom having originally voiced his opinions slowly, and thereafter pretending to ignore it when she completely disregarded everything he'd said. But that shifted five months into his tenure as XO, when he'd cut him off mid-sentence in a staff meeting. His body constricting with tension afterward as the briefing continued.

She hadn't though much of it when it happened. Realizing the gravity of her mistake only when he fell into a thorny silence on the bridge and then avoided her off duty. Worse, the rift had rippled out from there. With Tom ill at ease, the whole morale of the bridge seemed to deteriorate.

"I didn't mean to disregard your input," she'd said, sitting down in his quarters, a week into his silent treatment of her.

He only folded his arms. Looking at her with the same moody expression he did when she entered. She pressed on anyway.

"I value you, Tom."

When he locked his blue eyes on her searching grey ones, she wasn't prepared for the raw anger she saw there.

"Do you, Captain? Because I'm pretty sure that anyone could be sitting in my seat these days. Maybe we should make up a roster. Harry gets Mondays, Neelix can have Tuesdays-"

"Lieutenant," she stopped him, looking stern.

He turned away from her, standing near his viewport, but leaning against it rather than looking out.

"I don't know how to do this," he confessed with frustration. "I don't know how to have this title without you trusting me. To feel like every time I raise an objection or a concern, you've disregarded it before I've even finished."

"I do trust you," she argued earnestly. "Your opinions matter to me."

He didn't again question the statement in words, but the skeptical look he shot her voiced everything he felt. She settled deeper into the chair, suddenly feeling exhausted.

However petulant Tom's initial tirade, she'd understood his sentiment. She knew that as much as she trusted him, liked him, she made decisions on her own when things got tough. His tendency to defer to her as she rode roughshod over him had only made it worse.

"I'm not just your helmsman anymore," he said eventually, and sounding miserable. "But if you're uncomfortable with that at this point, it's time to make some decisions."

It wasn't a threat, she knew. But it inspired fear in her nonetheless.

"Things need to change," she agreed. "But those things are about us. How we work together."

They fell into a deep silence after that. Uncomfortable with one another despite the worries they had in common.

"You need to let me argue with you," he said finally, his arms still crossed.

"Now?"

"No," he corrected, shaking his head. "I mean in general. You need to trust me enough to listen to me, debate with me. And then know after all of that I'll still support you. Even if you decide on something I don't agree with."

"I don't' want our disagreements voiced in front of the crew," she said quickly.

"I don't want that either. " After a pause, he'd added, with a dry chuckle, "I'm pretty sure they'd side with you anyway."

She rubbed her hand over her eyes and began to laugh a bit. A hollow sound that betrayed her fatigue as much as her dark amusement.

"You should get some rest," he said softly.

She raised her head to see Tom regarding her with sudden concern in his eyes.

"I have to get through B'Elanna's report first," she replied wearily. "But I'll go to sleep in a few hours."

"You should rest," he repeated, this time looking stern.

She let out an exasperated sigh.

"Is this going to be our first argument?" she asked, looking at him evenly.

"No," he said, walking toward her. "We'll save that for some other time. . . This we'll just put under the heading of you listening to the wise advice of your First Officer. Without debate."

The smirk that had appeared on his face proved contagious, and she soon found the corners of her mouth betraying her as they flirted with a smile.

"Fine," she relented, rising from her seat. "But you're going to regret this whenever I'm fully rested. I'm much easier to argue with when I'm tired."

That conversation had ended in companionable banter. But half a dozen ones after it had ended in angry exchanges, impassioned debates. Arguments that they'd moved from her ready room to other locations, for fear that their raised voices would reach the bridge.

Strange that she learned to find it comforting, sliding into her seat next to Tom after those arguments. Her First Officer looking content, supportive.

She'd thought it an act at first, a show for the benefit of the other officers. It took a few weeks to realize that his ease was genuine; that once she'd allowed him to openly voice his concerns, he would accept whatever decision she made.

Almost any decision anyway.

"Hi," Tom greets, currently coming into the metal shelter.

"Hi," she echoes, placing the last utensil on the table. "What did you bring for dinner?"

"Leola root stew," he answers apologetically.

It takes her a moment to realize he's pulling her leg. He breaks out in a toothy grin when her face falls.

"Would I do that to you?" he asks, fetching a container of pasta from the bag slung over his shoulder.

"Sometimes I don't know."

He chuckles at her feigned disapproval, sliding into his usual seat at the table. His smile only widens when she places a fresh salad in font of him.

"Your tomatoes are finally ripe!"

"Yep," she confirms proudly. "And it only took a little help from what the Doctor sent down to bring them up to speed."

"Glad you're giving him a project," Tom quips. "It keeps him out of my hair up there."

They both know that the last thing the Doctor's needed the last six weeks is a side project. Not when he's been working night and day to cure the illness that will kill her if she leaves the planet's surface. But she smiles nonetheless at the joke as she sits down across from him. Suddenly grateful for his company.

It's halfway through dinner that she gets a contemplative expression on her face. And Tom tries to decide whether he should inquire as to her thoughts. Sometimes it's better to get it out in the open. Others it's just better to leave her be.

"What's wrong?" he asks eventually.

"I've just been thinking. . . about your refusal to leave orbit after I contracted the virus."

He looks at her cautiously, weighing his response.

In the previous weeks, her anger at his insubordination has faded but not completely disappeared. It's helped, of course, that he's her only company here. Beaming down to have dinner with her every night, as the Doctor works on a cure and Ayala's team plots ways to make contact with those who may have already developed one.

"What happens if it fails?" she's asked him three weeks earlier, staring at the portable device that B'Elanna and the EMH had rigged to repel virus-bearing insects from his skin.

"So it fails," he'd shrugged. "Then the Doc has two of us to cure."

His seemingly cavalier attitude notwithstanding, beaming down to the planet isn't a risk Paris allows anyone else to incur. Making him the only direct contact she has with the ship that now orbits their position.

Sometimes he comes late into the evening. Others he can't keep from his face the stress of being the highest ranking officer physically present on the ship. Even on these days, he feels renewed by Janeway's company. No matter what challenges conversation with her brings.

"Oh?" he says presently, and not meeting her eyes over the table. "What about it?"

"If the Doctor can't find a cure, _Voyager_'s just wasted weeks of time sitting here. Babysitting me."

"This hasn't been a waste," he counters immediately. "We've had time to do half a dozen major maintenance projects while in orbit. Not to mention giving the crew a break from the threat of emergencies and red alerts."

Her lips press into a hard line, the rest of her face becoming taut. He decides to barrel on anyway.

"Most importantly, refusing to strand you here for the rest of your natural life is hardly a waste of the ship's efforts."

Her face further hardens at this, but she doesn't respond. It isn't as though they're having this argument for the first time, after all.

_I know it's not something you've ever wanted, Tom, but I trust you to get them home. _

She'd said it to him over a closed comm link to his quarters from the surface, several weeks earlier.

There'd been a long silence after that. And in it, she felt more for Tom more than she did herself. This younger officer who hadn't wanted the burdens of being an XO, let alone becoming his ship's ranking officer.

His response had taken her completely by surprise as she leaned against the stasis chamber, though looking back she isn't sure why.

_I appreciate the confidence, ma'am. But we're not leaving without you._

Sitting across from her at the dinner table, Tom can still remember every word of the argument that ensued. Her brimming rage at his insubordination. The way he'd offered to step down- if she could find even one officer who didn't feel the same way he did.

Tom can't rule out that it was partly fear that drove him then. But beneath that, and everyday since, it's been loyalty. And for the that he'll make no apologies.

"I brought you a few books," he announces, trying to break up the silence they've fallen into.

"Oh?" she asks, perking up as he reaches into his bag.

"There's an anthology of stories by James Joyce. A few biographies. Nothing terribly exciting, but I can bring down whatever you want."

"I haven't read Joyce in years," she says, running her finger along the spine of the book.

He watches as she touches it with reverence. As though it's the first real book she's seen in decades.

"I though you might like a break from reading repair summaries," he shrugs. His casual manner attempting to disguise the thought that went into his gift.

It doesn't work.

"Thank you," she says, putting her hand on his arm.

The open appreciation in her eyes catches him off guard, and he finds himself momentarily stunned. When the words begin tumbling from his mouth, they do so faster than he can filter them.

"How you thought we'd leave you behind I'll never know."

Later in the evening, when she opens to the first page of the Joyce anthology, Tom's words keep her company in the otherwise empty shelter.

. . . . .

Nine weeks into _Voyager_'s orbit around the planet, Paris sits working in Janeway's ready room late in the evening.

"Lieutenant," Torres greets, after he calls for her to enter.

He waves off the formality as he moves PADDs around the Captain's desk, B'Elanna taking the time to study his drawn face and red eyes.

"No offense, Tom, but you look like lukewarm death. You should get some rest."

"Thanks," he drawls. "I'll try to do that later. When I'm finished with work."

He's thrown off when she starts to laugh, casting a questioning expression in her direction.

"Be careful," she teases. "You're starting to sound like her."

"There are worse people to sound like," he points out.

"True," she concedes, adopting the same rueful smile that he does. "But don't look at me for extra rations when you develop her coffee addiction."

Their meeting passes quickly, B'Elanna silently noting Tom's trepidation when the topic turns to _Voyager_'s plan to meet with a ship purporting to have a cure to Janeway's virus.

"Meeting with a mercenary ship is better than meeting with the Vadiians themselves. At least we know that these people are only interested in profit, not harvesting our organs."

Tom nods, but doesn't look convinced. He's heard all of this from Ayala already, and though he thinks the plan a good one, he's still nervous.

"I should go," he remarks, standing up, "I told the Captain I'd beam down after I finished with you."

Torres cocks an eyebrow at the later hour, but say doesn't anything. It isn't as though Paris sleeps anyway these days.

"B'Elanna. . . "

They're alone in the turbolift when he begins speaking. The mask that typically hides his worry and exhaustion falling completely away.

"Does the crew. . . Does everyone resent the decision I made? Staying here with her, I mean."

She looks at him with surprise. But then the surprise is replaced by an expression of resolve.

"She's the Captain," she states confidently. As though this answers every doubt he has.

He nods crisply as the lift doors open, striding toward the transporter room without a glance backward.

Before the lift doors close, B'Elanna's eyes trail his retreating form.

. . . . .

"How in the hell did you scratch my desk?"

Coming into her ready room with a fresh thermos of coffee, Tom wants to shake his head at the kind reception his CO gives him.

"You know what I miss?" he asks, sitting down on her couch. "Our quiet dinners on the planet. You thanking me for running your ship. . . Days when you didn't swear at me the second I walked into a room."

Kathryn wants to laugh at his dramatic proclamation, but she keeps her amusement in check; looking at him with a menacing expression, and her hands on her hips.

"This wasn't there when I left, Tom Paris. I expect you to explain yourself."

He reluctantly stands again, coming over to look at the offending mark she's talking about.

"It's barely two centimeters long, Kathryn. You can hardly see it."

She falls silent, staring him down. Instead of buckling, he mirrors her stance.

"It was probably when Neelix and I drug it into the holodeck and used it to sled down a snowy cliff. Or maybe it was when we threw that party in here, and Ayala started dancing on the furniture. . . You'd really be surprised how light on his feet Mike is."

Which image amuses her more, he doesn't know. Either way, she folds, starting to chuckle.

"Remind me to put a command lock-out on my ready room door the next time I leave," she quips.

"There isn't going to be a next time," he says, the attempted levity in his voice falling flat.

She looks at him searchingly, the smile on her face becoming soft.

"You did a good job, Tom. It's obvious the crew respects you. . . How hard you worked the last two months."

"It was a team effort," he dismisses.

It doesn't deter her.

"You've made a lot of sacrifices, even before this. . ."

She searches for words, desiring to communicate her understanding of how hard it was for him to give up the warp ten flight, however ill-fated, to Harry; to watch his friendships struggle or wither altogether.

The schoolboy infatuation with Kes that disappeared over night. The longing looks he now trades with _Voyager_'s Chief Engineer, though artfully disguised; their silent exchanges always pushed away for the sake of his responsibilities.

"They haven't gone unnoticed," she concludes. It sounds like an apology as much as it does a token of thanks.

His shifting eyes meet hers, his shoulders going slack and the slightly indifferent expression falling from his face.

"Funny," he remarks, though his voice doesn't communicate even an ounce of humor. "That's what I've been wanting to say to you."

When she falls silent again, her face clouding with emotion, he moves past her, touching her shoulder.

"Come sit down with me," he says, "before the coffee I brought gets cold."

She nods, sitting beside him on the couch as he reaches for a PADD.

"Tom?" she murmurs, sometime later.

"Hmm?"

"Don't think I didn't see the tomato soup stain on the sofa. . . You get no prizes for stealth in simply flipping over the cushion."

She smirks darkly when he mutters a curse instead of an apology.


	3. In the cold and the dark

**Chapter 3: In the cold and the dark **

When she settles in for the night, it's with her back to the cave wall and Paris beside her. On the other side of the XO is Harry Kim, though the young Ensign is already passed out, sagging heavily against the rock and Tom.

"I won't tell anyone that we cuddled," Paris had assured, trying to convince the Ensign to scoot closer to him.

"Fine. But know that I'm not too tired to put up a fight if you make a move on me."

In any other circumstance, the exchange would have made their Captain smile. But she'd only closed her eyes. Trying for a moment to block out the dim silhouettes of her tired and hungry crew.

"Still cold?"" Tom asks now, seeing her body shiver slightly.

"I'm fine," she dismisses.

He scoots perceptibly closer to her, turning his head to look at her as he leans against the rock.

"Not setting a very good example for the crew," he sighs.

She casts her eyes around the dark space. Some people are milling about, but most are trying to rest. Even those in the latter group seem to have trouble heeding her advice about conserving body heat; her gaze resting on a line of three crewmen sitting in a row, each a respectable distance from the next.

"You're right," she concedes.

There's a low rustling sound of clock on rock when she moves closer to him. She doesn't flinch when his arm comes around her shoulder, pulling her flush against his side.

"Hope Harry will forgive me," he murmurs.

"For what?"

"Cheating on him with you."

The joke doesn't produce any sign of amusement, but she does allow her head to rest against his body. Given how exhausted they all are, Tom considers this a victory.

It's sometime later that she realizes that Tom isn't sleeping, despite that he's completely still.

"Can't sleep?"

Her voice surprises him. He glances quickly at Kim's limp form before letting out a long breath.

"Not the most comfortable mattress I've ever had," he points out.

He's right, her aching back and tense neck remind her. But she knows this isn't the reason he can't sleep. As many nights as she's caught him milling about the corridors of the ship or working in the mess hall, she's spent enough time with him to understand that rest only eludes him when he's worried or upset. Physically speaking, he can asleep anywhere or anytime.

"Comfortable?" she'd once asked, coming into his office to find him half-asleep on his desk.

She grinned from ear to ear at his embarrassment, Tom snapping straight up in his chair.

"Neelix's proposal for the Prixin party might not have been the best thing to read after lunch," he'd replied, sheepish and blinking.

"Just try to look more lively during the actual party, will you?"

Slouched against him now, on the planet on which they've been marooned, the memory of their banter fails to stir any joy within her. It's just another reminder of the vessel, the home, that's been ripped from them.

She can only hope that B'Elanna and Pablo Baytart are still out there, on a shuttle somewhere. A faint trace of relief; even two members of her crew having escaped this fate.

"Are you thinking about Ensign Hogan?"

Her voice is just above a whisper even though everyone around them is asleep. He doesn't respond immediately, his hesitation in itself a confirmation. After a moment, he feels her head rest a little heavier against his body.

"Chris hated me when I was in the Maquis," he confides eventually, and adopting the same hushed volume. "I'm pretty sure even after Chakotay died, he would have rather punched me than given me the time of day."

When he pauses, he doesn't reflect on the fact that it has become old habit to refer to Chakotay's passing but not Tuvok's. One of the few taboos between them being any mention of her friend of many years, whom they'd been forced to kill.

When he continues, his voice is even softer.

"But while we were orbiting that planet. . . he found me one night in the mess hall. It was late and I hadn't eaten. I'm sure the look I gave him told him I didn't want any company either. . . But he sat across from me anyway. Offered to share his sandwich. Told me about his day in engineering. . . I didn't realize it at the time, but I think it made me feel less alone, with you away from the ship."

She remains silent, resisting the urge to bury her face in his jacket. Fighting, too, against the tears in her eyes that the wistfulness in his voice produces.

"He's the last one," he says, now slightly louder and sounding resolved.

"That last one of what?" she whispers.

"The last one we lose."

No one else sees the tear that escapes the Captain's eyelashes, running down her cheek, into her XO's uniform. Nor do they see the way her hand threads through his, his long fingers gripping hers tightly.

"The last one," she echoes.

When they rise in the morning, they both move with new determination.

. . . . .

"Tell that to Jenny," Tom teases, forking another bite of his food.

"I did! Two years ago, remember?"

Tom laughs at Harry's sputtered response to his barb, but abruptly falls quiet when B'Elanna walks into the mess hall. The engineer giving the First Officer a moody glance before she looks away.

Harry notices the silent exchange but doesn't say anything. Even though the rumors of what happened in the Sakari caves have circulated throughout all fifteen decks of the ship, the Ops officer knows the boundaries of his friendship with the man across from him.

Personal information is a one-way corridor, and any attempt to travel the opposite direction will be rebuffed, however artfully, by Paris.

"I should go," Harry announces suddenly, looking at a chrono and standing up.

"If you're late for your shift I'm not writing you a note."

"As if the Captain would accept it," Kim snorts.

"What wouldn't the Captain accept?" Janeway asks, walking up to the table and sliding into the seat Harry has just vacated.

Tom smiles slightly while Harry stands sputtering.

"Just go, Ensign," she laughs. Mercifully ending his awkward groping.

"Good morning," Tom greets, when Harry's retreated. "You seem chipper today."

"I am entirely caught up on reports," she beams. "And this is my second cup of coffee."

"How nice for you," he comments. Abruptly suspicious of her good cheer.

She smiles at him a moment too long. And he sips his juice, waiting for the inevitable dropping of the shoe.

"Have you talked to B'Elanna?" she asks casually.

"Kathryn," he breathes, rolling his eyes.

"I'm not asking as Kathryn. I'm asking as your Captain. I need to know that things are going to be alright between my First Officer and my Chief Engineer. . . I need know that despite that you feel awkward and she's angry, we're going to get through this as a staff."

He pushes away his breakfast, leaning back in his chair.

"Are you really worried about the professional dimension of this?" he demands.

She doesn't really consider lying to him. Even if she did, he wouldn't believe her.

"No," she admits. "I'm worried about you."

"I'm fine."

"I'm also worried about B'Elanna."

"She's fine, too!" he declares, his voice rising.

When crewmembers begin to look a them, they briefly fall silent. Janeway looking at him searchingly and Paris looking everywhere but her eyes.

"Neither of you are fine," she says eventually. "And neither of you are going to be fine until you talk about this."

His indifferent façade cracks. He meets her gaze with eyes that betray with all the confusion and frustration he feels.

"What's there to say, Kathryn? You read my report. . . There are things that I don't think I can really address with her."

"Why not?" she presses.

"Because. . . I don't share her feelings."

She hides any trace of skepticism concerning his statement, recognizing the fine line she's treading even as his friend.

She'd worried months earlier that his avoidance of B'Elanna was because of his title, his personal life suffering under the weight of his responsibilities. The stolen looks between her two officers then shifting into a cold silence after the Blood Fever incident, the Klingon now looking at Tom with hurt and anger rather than masked longing. That is, when B'Elanna bothers to meet Tom's gaze at all these days.

But now, Kathryn's begun to think that Tom's running from the engineer only because he's scared of a romantic relationship. Or else, because he thinks he'll be unable to juggle both his job and a lover. Either way, she sympathizes.

"We might be out here a long time," she warns.

The irony of her, of all people, voicing this sentiment isn't lost on him. He looks at her evenly until she averts her eyes.

"Do you take a personal interest in all your officers' love lives?" he asks, crossing his arms.

"Only the ones I share god-parenting responsibilities," she smirks.

He gives her a put off look, wishing she hadn't brought up Q. Or his offspring.

"Let's just hope he doesn't ask us to babysit," Tom quips.

"I'm not sure why you're the one getting angry. It was you who gave him aid and comfort in his attempts to mate with me."

"Aid and comfort?" he exclaims, and to her amusement. "He wanted to know how to break through your 'icy exterior'."

"And you responded!"

"I told him you liked people who respected boundaries," he corrects. "Which you should appreciate. Since he'd planned to seduce you with a heart-shaped bed."

"Still," she huffs, "you encouraged him."

"No. . . But I should have."

She cocks an eyebrow at him, the sternness of her mouth justaposing with the mirth in her eyes.

"I would have been nice to have an omnipotent friend," he elaborates. "I could have pizza whenever I wanted it. Even grab it in Italy, at the drop of a hat."

"You'd sell me out for a piece of pizza?"

"In a nanosecond," he nods. "If it was really good pepperoni."

Her expression turns from feigned anger to mock pity.

"Poor Lieutenant Commander Paris. You wanted an unlimited supply of Italian food and instead got an omnipotent god-child."

He doesn't roll his eyes at the use of his rank change. After almost a year, he's gotten used to it. And her subtle taunts concerning it.

"If there are ever any diapers involved, I'm leaving it up to Aunty Kathy."

When she cringes at the nickname, he smiles to himself. Thinking the distraction might have gotten him off the hook from their previous conversation.

"So you're not going to talk to her at all about this?" she asks, after they've sat for a few beats in comfortable silence.

He inwardly groans. Strangely longing for the days when they fumbled around each other professionally and engaged in (mostly) polite small talk.

"Why does this matter to you so much?" he asks exasperatedly.

"Because you're my friend." When he doesn't respond, she smiles at him, reaching for his hand over the table. "My best friend."

It's the same sentiment he expressed to her a month earlier, after her near death experience.

She'd been surprised then, when he hugged her in her ready room; the intimate title he assigned her, confessing how scared he'd been - kneeling over limp body and trying to revive her.

It's also the same sentiment he'll shout at her in anger, a year and a half later, when she locks herself away as they pass through a starless void. Their raised voices echoing out from her quarters far louder than they've ever they rang out on Deck One.

"Remind me to pick someone less annoying for my next best friend," he remarks presently, standing up from the table.

She merely glares at him as she follows him out of the mess hall, but he knows better than to think she's dropped the subject. Kathryn Janeway doesn't withdraw. She just rethinks her strategy.

. . . . .

"I'm not comfortable with this," he says, adamantly shaking his head in her ready room.

"It's the only way, Tom."

"It's making a pact with the devil!"

"Exactly," she says, and Paris looks at her in appall. Surprised and horrified at both what she's suggesting and how calm she is while she does it.

"It's their nature to murder- to destroy everything they touch. The fact that there's something out there that _might_ be worse than them doesn't change it. They're still the Borg. They can't be trusted, Kathryn."

She looks at him searchingly, hoping there's some chance she can convince him.

Hoping, beneath that, that swaying him will mean she can convince herself.

"Are your concerns only prudential?" she asks, sitting down on the couch.

"No," he replies, shaking his head. "They're moral, too. Helping the Borg will mean unduly shifting the balance of power in the quadrant- giving them a new method of assimilation and destruction. It's untenable."

"More untenable than the destruction that Species 8472 will bring?" she scoffs.

"I'm not quoting the Prime Directive at you," he notes. "I'm not saying we should stick our heads in the sand or retreat. Pretend the problem doesn't concern us. But there's a difference between shifting the balance of power for the sake of preserving something of value and doing so out of self-interest."

The accusation strikes her with more force than he intended. Her eyes flash with pain. And then with anger.

"Is that what you think I'm doing? Making a decision without regard for anything beyond the hull of this ship?"

"Not consciously," he corrects. "But going through with this means putting our interests in front of countless star systems. All the pain and suffering it could cause outweighing- possibly many times outweighing- the sacrifice we made when we destroyed the Caretaker's array."

She turns away from him in anger. Her rage and hurt bubbling up and over her restraint before she spins back around.

"Tell that to all the planets Species 8472 will slaughter!" she shouts, gesturing widely with her arms. "Tell that to Harry Kim!"

His cheeks immediately flush, his jaw clenching after his mouth opens and closes.

After a moment of starting at her, he stands rigidly at attention. His face the same cynical mask he wore when she met him in Auckland, and his blue eyes icy.

"I should return to the bridge, Captain. If there's nothing else?"

She regrets her words even before his cool formality. She knows, better than anyone, that the ailing Ensign she's cruelly used against him is like a younger brother to him.

She nods slightly, looking away from him, and he exits the room in silence.

. . . . .

She isn't surprised to find Tom in Sickbay after their shift, but he makes it that much harder for her to go to him. When sees him at Harry's bedside, his pain and worry unconcealed, she stops in her tracks, just a few meters from where Tom sits.

They were lucky not to lose the Ensign after he was attacked by their newest foe on the abandoned Borg ship. Janeway, as she so often has, finds herself pushing through the guilt that one of her command decisions has put one of her officers in jeopardy.

"The nanoprobes are working faster," he tells her bleakly, his eyes remaining on Kim's prone form. "The Doctor made another adjustment; sped up the rate of eradicating the alien DNA."

Janeway looks relieved, nodding to Kes with a smile as the young woman departs Kim's monitors. Unlike their EMH, the Ocampan can read social situations fluently.

"I'm sorry about earlier," Kathryn begins cautiously. "What I said was. . . uncalled for."

"You were upset."

His words are an observation rather than excuse or an apology. She collects her thoughts as she looks at Harry's ravaged face.

"I was hurt that you think I'm willing to put our agenda before anything else." She adds, casting a glance at him, "I guess I'm still hurt by it."

Tom lets out a low breath, tearing his eyes away from his friend's vital signs.

When he finds her gaze, she's startled by how much older he looks under the bright lights of the room. The stress of his position has aged him prematurely, and she knows he isn't the only one that rank has done a number on.

"I don't think you're doing it consciously," he explains. "Or that you're giving up on all our principles, after three years of fighting for them. Suffering for them. It's just that I know it's . . . easier than you think to convince yourself that you're doing something for one reason, when it's for another entirely. . . Tempting to take the low road and then say it's the only one available." He pauses, looking suddenly rueful when he concludes, "take it from someone who knows."

"You really think this is the low road?" she asks, her voice hushed.

He looks back at Harry's bed briefly, his posture one of defeat when he answers.

"I honestly don't know anymore."

They fall into an uncomfortable silence, though the discomfort lay solely in the future's prospects. They share the same worries, roughly the same burdens, and by now they each know they aren't alone. However lonely they sometimes feel.

"I miss Tuvok," Kathryn breathes.

"I know you do."

"Oh, Tom. I didn't mean-"

"It's okay," he cuts her off. "You don't need to apologize for missing him. . . You never needed to apologize for missing him."

He places his hand on her arm and she closes her eyes. Allowing herself to succumb to the dull ache for the friend and officer who's been dead more than two years.

"He always helped me put things in perspective," she admits, shaking her head slightly. "Even when there were times I didn't want to hear what he had to say."

He waits while she works through her thoughts, becoming curious when a smile tugs at her lips.

"Did you ever hear how I met Tuvok?" she asks.

"He served with you before this, right?"

"He did," she confirms, "but that's not how I met him. We weren't exactly friends the first few years I knew him."

This piques his curiosity. She's heard her refer to her friendship with Tuvok as having spanned well over a decade, but he didn't realize there was period before that when they weren't friendly.

"He once dressed me down in front of three Admirals," she confides.

"For what?" he demands, taken aback.

"Failing to adhere to protocol," she answers, mimicking Tuvok's monotone voice.

"Of course," Tom laughs, shaking his head.

"Well . . . It took a few years for my ego to recover. Especially as he was right."

"He had a bad habit of doing that," he observes. "Being right, I mean."

"He also had a habit of forcing me to see things that I didn't want to. Making me reconsider my decisions." She looks at him, covering his hand on her arm with her own fingers. "You remind me of him a great deal sometimes."

"Of Tuvok?" he puzzles. "I'm not sure how. . . I suppose you've noticed that my tendencies kind of run the opposite way of a Vulcan's."

"They do," she agrees. "But you have the same habit of making me rethink my positions. Challenge my presuppositions in ways I don't expect."

"You know that I support you," he says, suddenly concerned.

"Oh, Tom, I know. That's the reason it means so much to me. I know you're behind me, one hundred percent. But you still debate with me - refuse to back down in private. . . It's rewarding."

"Except, of course, when it isn't," he sighs.

"I really am sorry about earlier," she repeats.

"So am I," he says, shifting his body so their shoulders and legs are flush.

"What you said earlier. . . And then a minute ago. . . It resonated. I'm not sure what to do anymore."

He stands up, needing to stretch his legs. When he leans against Harry's bio bed, he looks at her over the screen that flashes with Kim's changing pulse and blood pressure.

"If Tuvok were here, what would he tell you?"

"He'd tell me to take my emotions out of the equation."

"Which you can't do," he immediately retorts.

"So what then?"

"You can take us out of the equation," he says, and she looks confused. "You can abstract away our vested concerns."

"How can I do that," she presses, "when as you've just reminded me, it's impossible to objective about the situation at hand?"

She's right, he knows. The twin processes of self-deception and rationalization being as dark and nebulous as they are manifold. He glances around the room, noting Kes' distance from them and the Doctor's preoccupation with the monitor in his office.

"Let's assume- just assume," he begins slowly, "that this is a no win scenario for us. Not only can be not get around the Northwest Passage successfully, but whatever we do, the ship will be destroyed."

She nods, looking vaguely uneasy at his hypothetical, and he presses forward, groping to finish his thought.

"If what happens to us is the same either way - if there's nothing we could possibly gain. . . would you ally with the Borg anyway? Or would you stay out of it, let fate decide the victor?"

While she falls silent, considering his question, he diverts his eyes to Harry's freshly healed hand. The repaired tissue flush with heat and throbbing life as a result of the nanoprobes.


	4. Observation

**Chapter 4: Observation **

As Mike Ayala sits tucked away in a quiet corner of Sandrine's, he contemplates his fellow patrons.

Kim and Torres are engaged in conversation at the bar, the two friends having entered only a few minutes earlier, stopping briefly to chat with Janeway and Paris before retrieving drinks. Torres lingered with the command team only a moment (the XO and Captain seeming deep in their usual banter), but the smile the engineer shot the former pilot seemed genuine, however fleeting.

Further evidence, Mike decides, that things between Tom and B'Elanna are less strained now, following their near-death experience several weeks earlier. And while he'll never remark on it publicly, he's relieved.

B'Elanna is one of hid oldest friends, now that Chakotay's gone. And Tom. . . Well, Tom Paris isn't the dishonorable coward he mistook him for years ago. He's a good man. A fine officer. More and more, a friend as well; always quick with a smile or a sympathetic ear.

It's good to see the engineer and the former pilot getting along again, even if Mike can't help but notice the pained expression that appears on B'Elanna's face as she stands chatting with Harry. He even begins to wonder, until a snatched fragment of conversation finds his remote seat.

". . . alright?" Kim asks.

"Fine," the Klingon dismisses gruffly. "Just a stubborn headache."

Shifting his gaze from the bar, he sees Paris and Janeway still engaged in conversation. The normally reserved Captain smiling hugely as her First Officer finishes some kind of story, his gestures even more animated than usual.

It's the first time any of them have seen Janeway this relaxed in a while, and as he mentally catalogues the last few months' events, the Security Chief can understand why. The uncomfortable alliance with the Borg and all that it entailed. Losing Kes. Gaining that drone the Captain is hell-bent on rehabbing.

This last thought gives him pause. He and most of the crew still aren't comfortable with having a (supposed) former member of the Borg on board permanently, let alone considering her part of the crew. But the Captain is determined, and Paris seems to genuinely support the decision, even in private.

"You've forgiven me my mistakes," Tom pointed out to him, a month earlier, while they worked out together on the holodeck.

"You didn't kill thousands - millions of people," he'd shaken his head disdainfully.

"No," Tom had almost whispered, his blue eyes reflecting a profound sadness almost never openly shared. "Only three. But unlike Seven of Nine. . . I was actually capable of my own free choices when I made my mistakes."

Hearing the Captain laugh loudly at something Tom says, Ayala is drawn away from the memory.

Of all Paris' abilities as XO, Mike is the first to admit that chief among them has to be the man's ability to get his CO to open up personally. It helps, too, in erasing some of the discomfort the crew feel around her in social situations; Paris' ease bridging the gap between Janeway's on-duty persona and her off-duty presence.

To be sure, people still sit up a little straighter when she enters, watching she and Paris with faint interest. But it's hard to be too uptight around her in Sandrine's. Not when the ship's XO is making her laugh so hard tears are streaming down her face.

Throwing back her head and laughing again, Janeway stands from her seat, motioning to the pool table.

"But you're going to win," the Lieutenant Commander whines. Failing to keep the sloppy smile from his face despite his feigned pout.

"You never know," the Captain sing-songs, regarding him with a smirk. "Tonight might just be the night you get lucky."

_Curious_, Mike thinks, watching the exchange with interest now.

"Is that so?" the blonde officer shoots back, his voice suddenly dropping with mischief.

"The night is young, Mister Paris."

_Even more curious._

Ayala's eyes narrow, following Janeway's cool sashay to the pool table, Paris trailing behind her.

. . . . .

It's a slow shift on the bridge today. And though Harry Kim has tasks to complete and variables to monitor, most of his time is spent engaging in his favorite hobby.

Spying on the Captain and Tom.

"Do you feel alright?" Tom asks, leaning over to Janeway's seat on the bridge.

"Fine. . . Why?" she responds distractedly.

She seems to struggle to focus on the monitor to beside her, and Kim feels a sudden prickle of concern.

The Captain hasn't been her usual hyper-focused self the last week and a half, though at first it was just a cheerful restlessness- almost a giddiness- that translated into colorful banter with her XO and more merriment than usual during the Alpha shift.

He had just chalked it up being back in a territory devoid of immediate, pressing danger. Until this afternoon, the Captain now looking like she feels physically uncomfortable, maybe even dizzy.

"You're sweating," Tom replies in a low voice, gaze locked on the small sheen of perspiration on her forehead.

Studying Tom, the young officer notes the same sheen on the XO's own brown. Kim feels even more concerned, both by its presence and Tom's apparent failure to notice it himself.

When the Captain looks up, she appears somehow startled by how close Paris is to her, his face only centimeters from hers.

"I'm fine," she says again, shifting back in her chair. "Maybe I had . . . too much coffee this morning. Not enough for lunch. "

"Shocking," Tom drawls, smirking at her slightly.

But something about the smirk makes Harry uncomfortable. It's a look he's seen before on Tom, though not for three years.

When Janeway mirrors Tom's smirk, Kim shifts awkwardly on his feet behind the Ops console.

_Weird, _the Ensign thinks, shaking his head in one quick motion. As if to rid himself of the thought by jarring it loose.

. . . . .

Tom isn't sure why standing in the turbolift beside Kathryn is uncomfortable, but he decides it's because more people than normal are crammed into it with them.

_Can everyone just stop breathing for a goddamned minute? _he thinks angrily, tugging his collar as he feels Ayala's hot breath next to him.

"Deck eleven, "Janeway calls and he looks at her curiously.

"I want to see how the modifications to the navigational deflector are coming." As she explains, she turns her face to him.

He doesn't notice her renewed surprise and alarm at his proximity, his blue eyes suddenly locked onto her grey ones.

"I'll come with you," he says absently. "See B'Elanna's work for myself."

She nods, turning her away from him. His gaze lingers on the slope of her flushed neck, paying no mind to her suddenly accelerated breathing.

When the last person gets off on deck nine, Tom feels more anxious than when the lift brimmed with people. He's also keenly aware of Kathryn's presence, but he doesn't know why. He feels uncomfortable, restless; even a little dizzy and short of breath. But he doesn't want to get away from her. Quite the opposite.

When the doors slide open, she almost bolts out of the lift, and he finds himself hesitating strangely at the threshold. Failing to hear his foot steps behind her, she stops, turning around slowly.

"Are you coming, Tom?" she asks him, her voice low, more gravelly than normal. He feels his breath momentarily escape him.

He nods quickly, falling in step beside her as they navigate the hallway to Deflector Control.

When they enter the tiered space, both the upper and lower levels are empty. The engineering kits are all neatly packed up, placed against a far wall in anticipation of the next day's work.

"Looks like engineering knocked off early today," he quips, his voice sounding strange to his own ears.

"B'Elanna's team has been working double shifts the last three days. I told them to take it easy today," she remarks, peering at an open console.

_Damn, she already told me that, hadn't she? Over coffee in the ready room at breakfast. She'd looked up mid-sentence, caught me not paying attention. I think I was staring at her . _

When he snaps back from the memory of her eyes dancing in amusement that morning, her pink lips twisting in a smile, she's barreling through some concern about the modifications.

"- better if we didn't bypass the relay here, but it would take another two days and I'm just not sure we have it to spare."

He moves close to her on the catwalk, peering at the relay she's talking about. Or at least, staring blankly at her small hands braced against it.

It takes him a moment to realize that those hands are shaking slightly.

"Kathryn?" he asks, touching her shoulder.

She spins around quickly when his hand makes contact with her, like the touch carried some kind of charged pulse that startled her. But he doesn't remove his hand from her arm, drawing even closer instead. Unconsciously trapping her between the console and his body.

He doesn't move after that- except for his gaze, which travels down from her searching eyes, lingering on her heaving chest, before trailing back up the same path.

_There are flecks of blue around the grey in her eyes. How did I not notice that before?_

"Tom," she breathes, her torso pressed against the wall behind her.

His mouth opens, but no sound comes out. He simply stands staring at her, frozen for what feels like an eternity by her intoxicating proximity.

It's only when he sees her eyes lower to his mouth that he moves forward, crushing his lips to hers.

. . . . .

As B'Elanna stands in the turbolift, she braces herself for a long hour. It's time for her monthly meeting with the Captain, and she would give a year's worth of rations to get out of it.

Normally the meetings are a piece of cake, the time flying by as she and Janeway chatter about repairs, modifications. Random bits of theory. But this one won't. Not as it's the first time she and the Captain will be alone in two weeks, following B'Elanna walking into Deflector Control to find Janeway and the ship's XO half naked, mauling each other against a panel.

_Kahless, why didn't I take Joe up on his offer to run the diagnostic that day? _

B'Elanna shakes her head angrily, positive she will never pry the image of the two of them from her mind. Janeway's hair loose from her clip, flying around her. Her back arching in pleasure as Tom kissed her throat and trailed frantic hands over her body.

Tom.

B'Elanna had felt like they were so closing to moving forward after almost dying together, drifting in space. She'd even confessed that she missed his friendship, his easy comfort, over the last nine months. She can still see his intense expression, standing in the corridor, when she tried to brush it aside after they got back, and he'd swung her around by her arm.

"I missed you, too, B'Elanna."

His face had been so earnest then, his eyes flashing with pain.

She tries to hold onto that memory. But now it's quickly replaced by his flushed face, eyes closed, as he feverishly kissed Janeway. His words of honesty and friendship drowned out by the sound of him groaning the Captain's first name.

"Lieutenant," Janeway greets, rising from her desk.

She gives a curt nod, trying not to be obvious in her refusal to meet the older woman's eyes.

It isn't until they're almost done with the meeting that B'Elanna notices the Captain hasn't tried to make eye contact either. Isn't until the formal stuff ends, the time coming to make their usual small talk, that she realizes the woman across from her is as deeply uncomfortable as she is.

When Janeway stares into coffee cup, going on about the engineer's latest proposal, B'Elanna finally spares her an appraisal.

There are dark circles under Janeway's eyes and the rest of her skin looks slightly sallow. She looks. . . tired. Stressed.

The engineer zones out of the conversation completely, reflecting instead on the last few times she'd seen Janeway with Paris. It had only been on duty, and she'd retreated from their presence as fast as she could, but she realizes now there was a certain distance there. An uncharacteristic lack of comfort between two.

And once, when Janeway had walked away from where Tom in engineering, his eyes had followed her slight frame. Trailing her with a pained expression.

_They're so uncomfortable they're barely speaking to each other_, she thinks, flushing with guilt that she'd assumed they'd already fallen into a romantic relationship.

When the Captain clears her throat, looking acutely uncomfortable, B'Elanna snaps back to attention.

"Lieutenant, I haven't gotten the chance to apologize. . ."

Janeway pauses, collecting her words, and for the first time, B'Elanna feels genuinely bad for her. She can only imagine how the woman across from her feels. Caught in an embarrassing position by a subordinate. Her relationship with her First Officer, her friend, now strained. Possibly irreparably.

"I'd like to say I'm sorry," Janeway begins anew, "for what you walked in on. . . The awkwardness it may have caused you."

_Well at least she said 'awkwardness' and not 'pain'_, B'Elanna thinks, half bitter and half relieved. _Janeway- ever the diplomat. _

"You and Tom weren't yourselves, Captain."

She's pleased by how easily the words come. How natural they sound, despite the pit in her stomach.

"Still," the Captain says, shaking her head, "if I caught two of my others in that position-"

"You'd find a way to understand. Given the circumstances."

Janeway nods, meeting her gaze for the first time. The relief is apparent on her drawn face.

B'Elanna tries to cling to this thought, blocking out the image of Tom's blue ones trailing Janeway in engineering, and with a longing he never seemed to spare for her after the Sakari caves. The longing she must have looked at him with, even if buried under hurt and anger.

"Thank you, Lieutenant."

Janeway's crisp nod, coupled with her rising from the desk, indicates a dismissal. But for some reason, B'Elanna's feet remain planted where they are rather than fleeing at warp speed.

"Captain. . . have you talked to Tom about this?"

She can't believe they're her own words, convinced that it's someone else doing the talk. That perhaps when the Doctor cleared her for duty, he skipped some kind of crucial brain scan.

"Lieutenant, I don't really think we should be talking about. . . "

Janeway's voice trails off as she rearranges PADDs on desk, but despite the Captain's mask she wears the engineer can see it; the fear and pain. The longing for a friend who now seems out of reach. Perhaps, too, the longing for something else.

All things B'Elanna is acutely familiar with.

"I know it's not my place," she says, suddenly undeterred. "But it isn't as though you can talk to your First Officer about this."

The woman across from her scratches her eyebrow, shaking her head slightly. Still, no verbal protest comes, and the engineer takes it as a sign.

"You weren't yourselves," B'Elanna repeats, "it has no bearing on your friendship, your working relationship."

As the words tumble from her lips, she isn't sure what's worse. That she's reassuring the woman who's managed to touch the man she herself pines for, or the fact that the reassurance she's offering is one she knows to be false.

Altered hormones levels or not, it isn't as though Janeway or Paris had batted an eyelash at anyone else during the alien experiments. Only at each other. It's a reality B'Elanna is painfully aware of, as Tom failed to search her out in his impaired state. Despite that he was all she wanted in her own, almost a year earlier.

Janeway searches her face. Scanning for insincerity, the younger woman recognizes.

Whether she's so upset as to miss it, or so desperate as to deliberately ignore it, B'Elanna will never know.

"Thank you, B'Elanna," her CO says softly, sitting back down.

When B'Elanna leaves the ready room, walking across the bridge on legs that feel borrowed, the lift doors open and Ayala gets on with her.

"Can I ask you something, Mike?" she says, leaning against the wall of the lift.

The characteristically cool security officer only nods.

"When you have a bad day, what do you to try to get rid of the stress?"

"Vulcan meditation," he answers, his arms clasped behind his back.

"That works for you?"

He smiles cryptically at her incredulous expression.

"No," he confesses. "But I always try it before heading to the holodeck to punch the lights out of some Nausicaans."

She stares at him, studying his subtle amusement.

"So, why bother with the meditation in the first place?"

His smile widens into an all out grin.

"I guess I got used to the vain attempt."

"Right," she mumbles, closing her eyes

As Mike watches her silently, B'Elanna contemplates her own futile behaviors for the rest of the ten-deck ride.

. . . . .

When she catches sight of Tom in the mess hall, he's sitting alone with Seven at a table by a window. The two are talking in low voices, and Tom is obviously groping for conversation while Seven perches uncomfortably. But still, he's trying, and for this Kathryn's grateful.

When Kathryn hears the name 'B'Elanna,' she halts her approach to Seven and Tom's table.

The ship's Chief Engineer has just been discharged from Sickbay after the Doctor treated her for the partial engramatic purge she suffered, prior to Ayala interrupting the Mari's procedure with evidence of the world's own source of violent thoughts.

And though the silence still stretches between her chair and her XO's, she'd seen Tom's face morph from worry to relief, and then finally into pain. She knew, with a pang of sympathy, it would be Mike and Harry, not him, who waited for the engineer when she was released from the Doctor's care. Never again him.

"It is illogical to gain knowledge of other species given the risks such explorations invite."

She knows immediately from hearing Seven's assertion that the former drone is now continuing with Tom the conversation the two of them had in her ready room earlier in the day. She isn't surprised Seven is still pushing; she could tell by her face before that what she herself had said hadn't swayed the young woman. Still, she's surprised to see Tom engaging so readily with her, gesturing the way he would as if in conversation with Harry or Neelix.

Kathryn can't hear the rest of the conversation, but after a minute, Seven's face loses its hard edge of doubt, becoming contemplative. She approaches the twosome again, her curiosity getting the best of her.

"Captain," Seven greets stiffly, abruptly stopping her discussion with Paris.

_Well, so much for that_, Janeway muses.

When Seven excuses herself, Kathryn looks down at Tom's untouched plate, feeling a stab of concern.

"Not hungry?" she asks, standing awkwardly by the table instead of sitting down.

"I think I'm just not brave enough to try Neelix's latest dish. . . Our jobs seem harrowing enough without dinner being an adventure."

The quip is of the sort Tom would normally make, but his voice carries a hollowness to it that she knows it didn't have two months earlier.

She silently curses herself, one more time, for having tried to pretend the Srivani's experiments and the surrounding events never happened. It's only made things worse between them.

"Buy you a bowl of tomato soup?" she offers. "I think I even have a bottle of Kradin ale still stashed away somewhere in my closet."

The look he gives her is one of tempered hope. It dawns on her that he can't even manage outright optimism at this point.

"Sounds good," he says, forcing a smile.

"Shame to waste your dinner though," she remarks, and he favors her with a rueful glance as he stands up. She fails to suppress her smirk.

"Chell just came in," he says, nodding to the Bolian. "I'll offer it to him."

He's quiet once he gets to her quarters. They both are.

Of course, when both of them start to talk, they do so at once, awkwardly stopping and staring at each other.

"I'm sorry," he says politely, "you were saying?"

"Tom. . . I want to apologize for making things more awkward between us than need be. We should have just talked about it the first week."

"I was under the impression you didn't want to talk about it right after," he apologizes.

She wants to turn away from him, unable to voice her thoughts with complete honesty.

_I don't even want to talk about it now_, she thinks._ We just have no choice. _

"Tom," she says instead, "we weren't ourselves. There's nothing we can do about what happened."

"We weren't_," _he echoes quickly.

"What happened has no bearing on our friendship. Nothing to do with our working relationship."

It doesn't occur to her to question how quickly B'Elanna's words come to her, and or how unwilling she is to the analyze the assertions she's making.

"I agree completely," he chimes.

"So," she says, again standing awkwardly beside the table he sits at.

"So," he says, a smile appearing on his face as he looks at her. "Friends again?"

"Business as usual," she laughs, sitting down across from him.

Digging into dinner together, she feels grateful for their rediscovered ease. Pleased that she's salvaged her relationship with her First Officer and best friend.

Ignoring the doubt lurking at the back of her thoughts, she keeps her eyes locked on their dinner and her plate. The scientific mind that's led her to poke into ever nebula and under every rock all of her life now having absolutely no desire to search the pair of blue orbs just across from her.

Eyes that remain steadfastly locked on the known safety afforded by his own plate.


	5. Between hope and fear

**Chapter 5: Between hope and fear**

It's well past 23:00, but she doesn't really consider the possibility that the she'll be waking him. He's almost always up this late; doing work, reading reports- worrying about the decisions he's made or the ones that still await. Neelix has even begun to joke that he's not sure which of them is more bound to their work, the Captain or her First Officer.

As Janeway walks, she swallows a sigh at this. The thought raises another worry- another chain of regrets- she can't bring herself to think about presently.

Chiming at Tom's door, she hears his voice and moves forward. When the doors part, she's surprised to see Mike Ayala sitting in a chair, his shoulders hunched and his back to her. Though the security office isn't making any noise, it's obvious from the shaking of his body that he's crying.

As if the sight of Ayala's shattered stoicism wasn't enough to surprise her, added to it is the sight of Paris kneeling in front of the older man; consoling him in a manner that bids forward a vague memory of her father crouching beside her when she was eight and badly scraped her leg.

After a moment, Tom sees her over Mike's shoulder, making brief eye contact with her as she withdraws at her inadvertent intrusion.

On the way back to her own quarters, she tries not to contemplate the feeling of despair she saw in his blue eyes before she ducked her head and silently backed out of his door.

. . . . .

"I'm sorry I was busy earlier," Tom says, nonchalantly, when he appears at her door an hour later.

She's surprised he came, but realizes she shouldn't be. It's her habit to sometimes stop by his quarters unannounced, but rarely does she appear at such a late hour and, undoubtedly, looking a little worse for ware.

And though normally she'd appreciate his tact in skirting around the exchange she witnessed earlier, tonight she doesn't.

"He's missing his children?" she asks, knowing the question is general enough that Tom won't be able to beg off of it in the name of protecting Mike's privacy.

He nods slightly, sitting down slowly on her couch.

It's then that she notices how tired he looks, the tell-tale signs of exhaustion painted across his features. After almost four years in the second chair, he still doesn't hide fatigue as well as she does. But then, the decades he's had to practice the art of concealment haven't been spent trying to hide the same things as her.

"Rough week," she sighs, sitting down next to him.

He doesn't comment on this, pulling his legs up under him and regarding her coffee table, where the Joyce volume he gave her two and a half years earlier lays open. He fixes his eyes on the text as they plunge into silence.

"Why didn't you trust Arturis?" he asks eventually, and still studying the same two lines of the short story "The Dead."

She shrugs, debating her answer as she begins to study the dog-eared page he's been regarding for the last few minutes.

There were tells, of course. Things about their 'friend' and apparent way home that raised flags for her earlier than they did for anyone else. But she doesn't voice this, because she fears it doesn't quite capture all of the truth.

In the last few days, part of her has begun to think that she didn't trust Arturis because she's no longer capable of believing in happy endings. Despite the hope and confidence she tries to embody for her crew.

"Some things are just too good to be true," she breathes.

He nods, but his face becomes more contemplative . She now stares at him, waiting for him to gather his thoughts.

"I'm hardly naïve," he begins, his tone measured, "but I think I might have been as taken in as Harry and the others."

She pauses for a moment, considering the obvious optimism her XO showed only a week earlier; his apparent relief that there was an end in sight for the crew. For himself.

"There's nothing wrong with hoping," she says, trying to match his measured tone. "Hope is what keeps us going."

He looks over at her now, his face softening and the faintest trace of a smile appearing on his mouth.

"Hope isn't the only thing," he says, taking her hand. And as his fingers slip through hers, she closes her eyes and lets out a long, deep breath.

As much as she appreciates Tom's honesty, the fact that he doesn't pull punches when they discuss things professionally, it's sometimes these quiet moments with him that keep her sane after a long week.

Yet as much as his companionship presently brings her a familiar solace, it also carries with it a certain degree of heaviness. The memory of his now flamed-out optimism hailing the same channel of worry that echoed faintly in her head as she walked to his quarters earlier.

Opening her eyes, she pushes the thought away once more.

"I'm not sure how many more speeches I have in me for Seven," she says warily.

He chuckles at the statement; a low sound that conveys amusement at her confessing it rather than at the situation.

"Just start making them up," he says, flippantly. "It's what I do when I have to lecture some crewmember."

"You don't make those lectures up," she scoffs.

"Sometimes I have to," he defends breezily, slumping a little on the couch. "Like when someone's breaking a regulation that's always seemed ad hoc to me. 'Just don't do that' only gets ya so far."

She smiles, regarding him with an innocent expression.

"So what you're telling me is that you've been bluffing your way through all of this?"

"I'm pretty sure you knew that," he jokes. "And besides, are you really implying that Kathryn Janeway never has to wing it?"

She pauses for dramatic effect, sipping the coffee she replicated when he first walked in.

"Never."

To her credit, she's able to maintain the deadpan delivery, her XO laughing for both of them as she continues to drink her rapidly cooling beverage.

"You know you don't always have to be the one to shepherd Seven," he points out, his mirth subsiding as he picks up the previous thread of conversation. "There are over a hundred and forty people on board who've also struggled with the diverse pains of humanity. It isn't as if she can't turn to the rest of us. Or else that it can't sometimes be me who reins her in, rather than you doing it every time."

It's an obvious statement of facts, but it's clear from his tone that he thinks she's overlooking something, plain or not.

"I know that," she retorts quickly. "It's just that I have a unique relationship with her. I feel. . ."

"Responsible for her?"

"Yes."

"You're responsible for everyone," he points out again. "But so am I. What makes Seven any different than Harry, or Jenny Delaney, or Naomi Wildman?"

"Because, Tom, I'm responsible for Seven in a different way than anyone else on board."

"What way is that?"

She lets out a sharp, frustrated breath and regards him with impatient eyes. He looks back at her with an undaunted expression and a gaze that doesn't waver.

If she's honest with herself, she will admit that it sometimes annoys her that he's no longer the insecure young officer who was terrified of becoming her XO, easily bull-dozed with a look or a few words. He's now spent months, years, dealing with crew members and going toe-to-toe with department heads. He has had to stare down hostile aliens as acting CO, and pretend that their ship was capable of overcoming overwhelming odds in battle. And in all of this, he's learned two key things.

The first is the depth of patience. And the second is the ability to hide his own fear from anyone, including his current companion.

As they sit looking at one another in steely silence, she can't decide whether it's the first or the second of these that irritates her more.

"She didn't choose to be an individual," she continues, her voice even lower than normal. "I chose that for her. And now I need to see her through this process."

"I seem to recall it being more than just you in the room when we made that decision," he presses. "You still haven't answered why it has to be you and only you who helps her in this."

"Why are you pushing me on this?" she asks abruptly, and crossing her arms.

"Because I'm worried."

"About what?"

"You."

"Me?" she puzzles. "Tom, I'm fine."

"Fine?" he questions, his eyebrows raising slightly. "Kathryn, two days ago we were almost killed by someone whose entire family- whose entire civilization- was destroyed by the Borg after we helped them. And you have haven't said a single a word acknowledging it."

She opens her mouth, but before she can voice a retort he's barreling on.

"I'm not talking about out there," he gestures, pointing toward the corridor. "I'm talking about in here. In private. You haven't said a word. You've just. . . sunk yourself further into work. And reclaiming Seven's individuality."

"I don't what this has to do with Seven of Nine," she says, dodging the observation.

He scoots closer to her on the couch, angling his body to directly address her as he takes a moment to contemplate his reply.

"I'm worried that you sink yourself into the project of saving Seven because you don't want to confront other worries- you don't want to acknowledge the guilt you have over decisions you've made. Decisions _we've_ made."

"Tom-"

"Listen to me. I care about Seven of Nine. And I want to see her acclimate to life aboard the ship almost as much as you do. But saving one former drone isn't some act of salvation that can erase everything else. Sacrificing yourself- your own sanity- isn't going to change anything that's happened in the last year."

The hard expression she's been regarding him with as he spoke gets even darker. Her mouth opens and shuts as she bites back thoughts too acid to voice even to him.

Only months earlier, they would have argued here. They would have shouted and they would have screamed, and after about an hour there would have been some kind of resolution. But these days, they don't have the energy for the shouting. Not when Kathryn spends so much time battling Seven of Nine. And each of them already expend more energy than they would ever admit waging their own mental debates about choices that have already been made.

So instead, most of the things that once would have once been sorted out in an hour-long argument now transpire in twenty seconds of silent looks and deep breaths.

"Talk to me," he says finally.

"I'm not sure what you want me to say," she responds, shaking her head slowly.

"The truth," he supplies. "I want you to tell me the truth about what you're feeling." He adds, looking rueful, "hell- I want you tell yourself the truth about what you're feeling."

She pinches the bridge of her nose savagely, her head now dully beginning to throb. This isn't why she came to find him earlier. Or maybe it is. Either way, all she wants, now that he's confronting her, is to be alone in her quarters, re-reading the same book she's practically memorized.

"What good does the truth get us?" she remarks wearily, gesturing with one of her hands as she begins to speak without thinking. "It doesn't buy the ship or the crew anything to dwell on the consequences of what we did. The fact that an entire civilization was wiped out because we allied with the Borg. All the lives that we ended."

"We didn't end their lives," he says softly, his eyes locking with hers.

She hadn't meant to say it. She's barely allowed herself to think it. But now that the words float in the air between them, she can't bring herself to deny ownership of them.

"Didn't we?"

He considers her for a beat. Pulling together the thoughts, the lines of reasoning he's been puzzling over himself as of late.

"No," he replies in a confident voice, "we didn't. We tried to protect the quadrant from the greater of two threats. That we couldn't protect it from both can't be held against us."

It's partly the truth, Kathryn recognizes, but it's also partly rationalization. She doesn't point it out to him because she's sure on some level he already knows of the many lessons she herself has learned out here in the Delta Quadrant, key among them is that rationalization, like hope and the companionship of friends, keeps them all going.

They fall into another silence. Not entirely comfortable but not quite awkward either. Breaking with their usual custom, she's the one to end this one.

"I vaguely recall you once fearing that you would never be the one doing the reassuring in our relationship," she says, her expression slightly wistful.

"True," he acknowledges. "Just like I remember the days when you spoke to me politely instead of telling me to shut up."

"I do _not _tell you to shut up," she declares, her eyes twinkling despite her efforts.

"No. You tell me to shut the fu-"

"Anyway," she cuts off forcefully, causing him to laugh at her rather predictable boundary.

"Anyway," he echoes slowly, his mischievous grin in place. "Before Mike stopped by, I was going to come by and see you. I have a bit of present for you."

"A present," she repeats, looking at him with measured interest.

"I'd planned for it to be a Christmas present, but then . . . the week kind of got away from us."

She does the mental math in her head and realizes that it's now December twenty-eighth by the old Earth calendar. She breathes heavily, torn between the surprise that Tom is still so attached to his parents' traditionalist ways and the rueful thought that, once upon a time, she used to be, too.

"So," she prompts, not wanting either of them to dwell on how they actually spent Christmas day this year, "is this gift perchance a resolution not to be so mouthy to your friend and Captain?"

"I said it's a present, Kathryn. Not a miracle."

She rolls her eyes at the quip, standing from her couch with growing expectation.

"Well," she prods, "are you going to make me wait, or can I have it now?"

"You may have it," he announces, rising as well. "But we'll have to fetch it from Sickbay."

Her eyebrows shoot up at this, as he knew they would. The worry now occurring to her that this is all some ruse to get her down to the Doctor, likely for some kind of test that's either slipped her mind or been put off for weeks.

"No tricks," he promises. "The Doctor just kindly offered to hold onto it for me."

This tidbit piques her interest even further. She grabs her jacket, discarded on the couch, and runs a hand through her hair.

"So we'll have to relieve him of it," she declares, already making for the door.

He smirks a little at her impatience, feeling relieved that at least her mood has lightened a bit. As they make their way to the turbolift, he silently hopes his present will encourage such levity in the future.

"Or we could wait. You know, prolong the mystery."

She glares at him and he bites back the laugh that creeps up his throat. She's never been very good with someone holding something over her head, however small it might be.

"If you know what's good for you, Commander, you won't keep your CO waiting."

As they step into the lift, he clasps his hands behind his back, summoning an innocence that is not now, and has likely never been, believable coming from him.

"Are you really threatening me, Captain? I mean. . . that seems in rather ill-keeping with the Christmas spirit."

As the turbolift doors close, a passing crewmember hesitates in the corridor, catching the last few syllables of a retort the Captain hisses at her XO.

"-uck up, Tom."

. . . . .

When Kim moves into the darkened space, his eyes fix on the only two forms in the empty room.

The stillness of the Tom's silhouette, his long legs pulled up underneath him and his palms placed flatly on his lap, is juxtaposed by the frenetic energy of the miniature Irish Setter playing below him on the ground. As the pup chomps happily on a toy, the squeak-emitting noisemaker already mercifully killed, her bipedal companion watches the blue orb that teems relentlessly just beyond _Voyager's _low orbit.

"I thought Amelia was with the Doctor," Harry comments, realizing belatedly that his entry went unnoticed by one occupant while happily ignored by the other.

"She was," Tom replies, quickly recovering from the start the younger officer gave him. "But I thought it best to take her away from high traffic areas for the rest of the day."

Harry smiles at this, imagining the EMH's masked disappointment whenever Tom came to fetch the Captain's dog from his care. All the hologram's huffed assertions that he is 'a Doctor, not a veterinarian' notwithstanding.

"Does the Captain know yet that Amelia got all the way down to Main Engineering this morning?"

The pointed look the former pilot shoots him indicates a strong negative, and Harry quickly raises his hands as a sign that he has no interest in being the one to inform her. If Tom has performed the miracle of calming B'Elanna after a dog ran laps around her warp core, Vorick absurdly chasing after the creature at his boss' angry directive, the XO has earned the news of Amelia's escape from Sickbay staying far from the Captain's ready room door.

"I'm still not sure how she got all the way down there," Tom confesses. "It isn't as if the Jefferies tube she went into had anything close to direct access to deck eleven."

"Looks like she takes after her namesake. Enterprising explorer and all that."

Tom shakes his head slowly, giving the animal in question a rueful look. He's just gotten Kathryn to stop blaming him for ruining the dog's training by feeding her table scraps. He can't imagine what she'd say about the day's events. Nor does he want to find out.

"Serves me right for naming her after a pilot," Tom mutters, the dog losing interest in her rapidly deteriorating toy just long enough to bark at him and wag her tail.

"It's a good name," Harry smiles. "Perfectly fitting for the Captain's pet. But are you admitting pilots are a rogue lot?"

The rueful smile slips from Paris' face, Kim failing to understand why the joke fell flat. Tom can't voice to him the thought, the fear, that the last thing he feels these days is 'rogue'.

Encumbered maybe. Duty-bound perhaps. But definitely not rogue.

"Any news from the Captain yet?" Kim asks, trying to re-establish the conversation.

"Not yet," the XO replies, "though frankly she wasn't optimistic when she beamed down."

"Riga's findings should at least give them pause," the younger man assures. "I find it hard to believe that the Moneans would continue on without thought of the possible consequences."

At this, Tom falls silent, leaving his friend to assume that he isn't able to further comment on the Captain's on-going negotiations.

"Well," Harry sighs, unsure what to do with the silence, and all of his efforts to play with the Setter being firmly rebuffed in favor of the canine's current objective of chewing, "I should get going. I've got the early shift tomorrow."

Tom nods absently, it not even occurring to him that Harry is leaving the mess hall without acquiring the food he undoubtedly came for.

"See you tomorrow, Har," Tom calls belatedly, the door's shutting behind the retreating man.

It's only the a few minutes later that his comm badge beeps, the familiar noise causing Amelia's ears to perk up.

_Janeway to Paris. _

As the gravelly voice fills the room, the dog barks and jumps up next to Tom. Attempting to shush the pup, he silently thanks the stars that he had the foresight to ask the Doctor to produce a dog smaller than a standard Setter. He can only imagine how much more difficult she would be if she were a larger dog and this unruly.

"Paris here," he says, his tone all business even as the dog tries to lap at his face.

_Was that Amelia?_

He hesitates at the tone of her question: a little past amusement and into accusation. She still doesn't like Amelia being anywhere but crew quarters or Sickbay, and he isn't going to lie about where he's at if she asks.

"Yes," he replies slowly. "She needed a break from the Doctor. . . I couldn't really blame her."

Over the comm line, he hears a snorting sound followed by a small chuckle.

_I don't know, Mister Paris. Taking a tour of the warp core seems like enough of a break to me. _

Looking at Amelia's bright puppy eyes, he pulls a face. Wondering which one of his treacherous crewmembers gave them up.

"You can hardly blame her," he begins, "she's a redhead. They're notoriously stubborn. Reckless, too. . . It really can't be helped."

His comment is met with a laugh, but not her natural one. The forced air of mirth acts as a catalyst for the already swirling nebula in his stomach.

"I take it things didn't go well," he says, cutting directly to the chase. And as he closes his eyes, the dog nuzzles him, her warm breath feeling wet against his suddenly cold skin.

_I'm sorry, Tom. . . The Moneans weren't prepared to listen to Riga's findings. _

As she says it, the glimmer of hope he has been nursing the last few days disappears completely, leaving a vacuum of fear in its place. The idea of that ocean- that beautiful ocean disappearing. . .

_Tom? Tom, are you still there?_

He pets Amelia slowly, smoothing down the feeling of desolation and despair as he answers.

"Yeah. I'm here, Kath."

_We have to have faith that they'll come to terms with this on their own. It's still possible, even if they won't see it now, that they will see it in the future._

It's a possibility, but not a likely one. He doesn't think to point this out for any number of reasons, the least of which being that Kathryn herself knows the scenario she's asking him to cling to is an illusion.

He presses his eyelids together a little tighter, trying to block out the image of the ocean he can still clearly see in his mind.

"I know," he says instead. "I know."

In the silence that ensues, the woman on the other end of the line gropes for any confirmation that he actually believes what he's saying.

If she were only in the same room with him, she would see the truth, of course. The pain evident on his face now confirming her fear- and one she's forestalled for months- that bit by bit he's been forced to cede away more and more of himself. Shouldering a burden he never asked for, a responsibility he never wanted, as time and again he's had to let go of another thing he loved.

"I'll see you when you get back," he announces, ending the silence with a casualness he doesn't at all feel. "Maybe regale you with the tales of a traveler named Amelia and her clash with a daring and angry foe named B'Elanna, as well as her evil henchman Vorick."

_Perhaps over a late dinner. . . See you in an hour?_

Her response is measured. Not quite hopeful, but something less than fearful. It's a place Tom once comfortably lived in.

"Sure," he replies, his eyes now locked on the swirling waters that seem close enough to touch with his fingers. "See you in an hour."

When the line closes, he doesn't move immediately, falling into stillness once more as his gaze remains unwavering.

As Amelia lays her head down on his lap, his thumb absently stroking the soft fur at the top of her head, her two brown eyes fix with interest on his collar. The three small metallic objects there, lined neatly in a row, shining faintly in the meager light that streaks through the darkness.


	6. Beyond recriminations

**Chapter 6: Beyond recriminations**

By the time the Captain comes down to the brig, her First Officer has been in the holding cell for more than four duty rotations.

He has, for thirty-six hours, had nothing to do but turn the week's events over and over in his head. All the while enduring the pained looks of sympathy from the security personnel whom she was forced to post as guards by her own direct order, Ayala refusing on principle to be party to the XO's confinement.

When she lowers the force field and dismisses the guards, they slowly trail out of the room with subtle looks of contempt. It is no consolation to Tom that after years of worrying about the crew's opinion of him, he is now, far and away, the more popular member of the command team.

Approaching the bunk where he lays out, his eyes trained on the ceiling, her face is drawn and her eyes bleak. Her very posture- her very essence- concedes a kind of defeat.

Sitting up from his bunk, he shifts his gaze to her. His blue eyes that once were filled with understanding and loyalty now filled with unremitting rage.

He has no interest in any apology she can offer him. There is no explanation she can produce that will calm the pain that now feels as fresh as when she first called the guards to lead him down here.

"You could have relieved me of duty," she says finally, and in a hoarse voice that's just above a whisper. "I'm sure there would have been. . . support about among the senior officers."

He remains silent, not offering an acknowledgment of her statement; not confirming that her pursuit of Ransom was obsessive and her threat to torture a member of the _Equinox_ crew beyond the pale.

Not bothering to voice the obvious fact that he didn't do so because he feared the effect her being relieved would have on the crew. That he had wanted to avoid the further, more profound danger that doing would be a betrayal the two of them would never live down; their personal and professional relationship stumbling under the weight of countless unspoken recriminations.

As her eyes shift across the cell, unable to meet his piercing glare, the accusation that she threw these same considerations out an air lock in favor or pursing the _Equinox_ rings loudly in the small space, even though he still hasn't opened his mouth.

The irony - the hypocrisy - that she relieved him of duty for protecting the principles she's always espoused, ordering him to be dragged back to another prison, chokes any words his buzzing brain could otherwise form.

As she suddenly looks at him, her grey eyes searching, almost pleading, she desperately wishes he would just shout like he did days earlier. Their argument over her pursuit of Ransom ringing out in the public venue of a corridor.

But standing up from his bunk, Tom remains eerily calm as he smooths the creases from the uniform pants he's been forced to remain in during his confinement.

"Am I to understand that I'm returned to duty?" he asks finally, his penetrating gaze now falling away, as though disinterested in her.

"Yes."

He nods crisply, grabbing for the uniform jacket he's folded up and used as a pillow while held in the brig of his own ship. As he fingers the three pips to make sure they're still in place, the thought runs through both of them that if this happened earlier in their journey, he would undoubtedly be throwing those same pips in her face. Demanding that she promote Ayala, or anyone for that matter, to replace him as First Officer.

But now his sense of duty, this way of worrying after the welfare of the crew, has become instinctive for him. Despite his personal feelings, he won't step down, leaving their officers to further question the competence of their Captain as the XO they still trust abandons his position.

He zips his jacket, straightening out the lines as best he can, before striding toward the threshold of the cell.

"Tom."

He stops at her voice, but doesn't turn around. It isn't so much that he can't bring himself to look at her, but rather that he has no interest in doing so. Because even if he did, he wouldn't see her standing there before him. Not when the swirling images that have assailed his thoughts for the last day and a half are still so very much present in his mind's eye.

All his sacrifices over the last five years, from his personal relationships to the now stinging memory of an ocean planet he chose not to save, asserting themselves one by one to form a long, straight line of anger.

That line bending to frame memories of the last two days. Snatched mental pictures of the steel he saw in her eyes when she relieved him of duty; the muted pain on the young security officer's face as the First Officer she was asked to take into custody summoned a dignity he was once incapable of, declaring to the young woman-and to all who listened- that he knew the way.

And adding the finishing details to collage of his burning sense of betrayal are the parts of their relationship the two of them have never spoken about. All of the questions they pushed away after their experience at the hands of the Srivani. The quiet intimacy they've each come to rely on even in the darkest of hours.

The dark, shadowy image of a raven-haired Devore inspector, and of whom the very thought still immediately summons bile to the back of his throat.

"Tom," she says again. And now her voice almost breaking.

This time, there is no hesitation. He simply places one foot in front of the other, leaving her to stand alone in the place he no longer belongs in.

. . . . .

"How is he?" she asks Samantha Wildman, coming into Sickbay to find the Ensign hovering over Paris' life signs.

"A little stronger," the fair-haired officer nods. "His progress is still slow, but it's getting a little faster everyday."

The Captain nods, sighing as the one-year-old Irish Setter tugs at her pant leg with teeth and paws.

"Do you want to speak with the Doctor? He's on deck twelve right now, but I'm sure he can come back to brief you."

"No," she responds quickly. "I really just came to sit with the Mister Paris. . . I thought maybe having Amelia here might do him some good."

Wildman immediately smiles, reaching down to pet the affectionate animal's nuzzling head.

"I'm sure that would be fine. So long as she promises not to play rough with our patient."

"You're sure the Doctor won't be upset?"

The Ensign smiles at the question, the EMH fussing over Sickbay's current resident even more than his characteristic zealousness requires. All the sarcastic banter between the hologram and the XO quickly and predictably falling away in the face of a real threat to either.

"What the good Doctor doesn't know won't hurt him," Wildman replies with a wink, petting Amelia once more before moving toward the Doctor's office.

As the woman retreats, her Captain thanks the gods, likely for the tenth time, that Tom thought to recommend Samantha as a medic upon Kes' abroad departure from the ship.

This last thought brings with it a familiar wave of pain; one that has replaced her XO's easy conversation as her closest companion, these last three months.

The dull wave is then usurped by an abrupt shooting one deep within her stomach as she approaches Tom's bedside. Though this is the third time she has been to see him since dragging him back from the neurogenic interface that almost convinced him to fly himself into a particle fountain, how gaunt and thin he looks still takes her breath away.

Sitting next to his prone form wile Amelia licks at his pale fingers, Kathryn tries to quiet the worry that it is because of her that he fell prey to Alice. The sentient ship offering him a freedom he's been deprived of, and that deprivation having coming with apparently little reward.

It's something she'll never know the answer to. And the one person who might know has dutifully hidden herself away in shadows of Main Engineering, the haunted expression on her dark features the only clue to the things she might have witnessed inside Tom's mind.

Here, Kathryn's thoughts are distracted as she has to pull at Amelia's collar, the animal trying to climb further onto the bed with Tom.

Even before Alice, the poor creature has profoundly missed her favorite babysitter and daily walker. And many have been the nights that Kathryn has sat silently in her quarters, trying to plow through this report or that, as Amelia whined continuously at the door.

Kathryn forcing herself, time and again, to return to the work in front of her, even though she knows just how her dog feels.

"You're too old to still be whining like that."

His voice is weak, barely audible, but the fact that he's awake at all surprises Kathryn. He's only been conscious four hours in the last three days, and even then he didn't speak.

His moves his head slightly, Amelia trying desperately to lick at his face, and Kathryn pushes the dog firmly away.

"Do you want some water?"

He doesn't look at her, merely nodding, and when she comes back with the water his eyes are closed again. It takes her a moment to realize that's he's still conscious and only resting. She sets the water down beside him while Amelia circles impatiently near her feet.

When he opens his eyes again, his gaze remains fixed on the ceiling, even when Wildman appears to inquire about his physical discomfort. Then the Ensign disappears again, and the two of them are left in the same wordless void they have dwelled in for weeks on end.

The silence, cold and thorny, that has prevailed as he's sat ramrod straight in his chair. Or else as he quit Deck One entirely, in the name of overseeing their new cross-training program, or crew evaluations- or anything, really, that meant he didn't have to sit only centimeters from her.

This silence, painful and yet now becoming so familiar, that has spilled down from the command deck to pervade the bridge, slowly seeping through the bulkheads beneath their feet and saturating all fifteen decks of the ship.

"The Doctor believes you'll be fit for duty by the end of the week."

"Aye, Captain."

The voice is steady but pained. The shame he won't speak of laying open on his face; mixing with the anger and the hurt already there.

"Rest well, Commander."

As she leaves Sickbay, Amelia trails reluctantly behind her. The occasional low whine turning into a mournful cry as the turbolift doors swish shut.

. . . . .

She hesitates as she takes her first few steps into the bar, admiring the program she's never been in before. The workmanship of the interior is impressive, every aspect well-conceived. She runs her hand along a wooden table, the rough grain rubbing against the pads of her fingers, and stands watching him sit alone at the bar.

"B'Elanna," Tom greets eventually, when he finally notices her arrival.

She smiles slightly, cocking her head to the side.

"I imagined Fare Haven as more bustling. Where is everyone?"

"There's a festival today. Everyone's off celebrating."

She pulls out the chair next to him, slides into it and examines the assortment of bottles on display behind the counter.

"I take it you didn't feel like it?" she asks.

"Like what?"

"Celebrating."

He swirls around the amber liquid he hasn't touched, considering both the motion and the heaviness of the antique glass.

"No," he sighs eventually. "I guess I didn't."

She leans over the counter to get a closer look at the liquid offerings, picking up a bottle only to put it down again.

"Didn't you program a bartender?"

When she turns back to him, it's just in time to see a shadow pass over his face. One of many these days, but this one she doesn't understand the nature of.

"He's occupied," he replies finally, sipping the scotch he's so far neglected.

As B'Elanna thinks of ways to ease them back into conversation, she looks around the room once more, taking in the detail.

"I had no idea how good you were at this kind of thing," she compliments. "This place is even more intricate than Sandrine's."

He nods, accepting the compliment, even as his eyes catalogue every bit of holocode he now thinks inapt or simply rushed.

"I've been trying to balance my days with more off time," he explains. "I've always had a knack for this sort of stuff, and this place was the first thing that came to me. It took me two months to write. "

She's surprised by the admission, but also concerned by it. Whether or not he's been trying to relax more, he hasn't spent anymore time with people like Harry or Mike than he did when he was burying himself in work. And as he clearly hasn't been clocking any social time with the Captain, this means he's largely been alone.

"Has this helped?" she asks, genuinely curious.

"Some," he shrugs. "It was nice to have a project. Design something completely from my imagination. Even have people enjoy it, compliment me. But as nice of an outlet as it is. . . it's just that."

She doesn't need to press him, understanding, despite his vague confession, that he's lonely. Because if she concentrates, she can still feel the overwhelming ache of despair that ran through her when she was connected to his mind. His longing tangling in a tight knot with his frustration and his anger. And circling through and around all of that, the long thread of emotions he has for a woman who remains out of reach.

"We never talked about it," she announces suddenly. Surprising even herself.

"Fair Haven?"

"Alice."

His mouth shuts quickly, the expression falling from his face. He'd assumed, with no small relief, she was never going to bring it up. Not after she simply nodded when he thanked her briefly his first day back on duty. Watching her stride back to her engine room faster than usual before he ducked his head and returned to the reports on his deck.

Not understanding as she retreated that B'Elanna was trying to block out the feelings and thoughts that didn't belong to her; pushing away the memory she felt, still so surprisingly clear in his mind, of the thing that stretched between them, before it finally withered and died.

When he doesn't say anything more, she realizes that she's going to gave to be the one to plow through with this. And as much as she's delayed this, as much as she's dreaded this moment, part of her knows that they both desperately need it.

"I thought I was alone in that feeling," she confesses.

He regards her with a look of mild confusion. His skepticism and reservation giving way to an arched eyebrow.

"Us," she supplies, letting out a long breath. "I thought after the Blood Fever fiasco that my feelings were one-sided."

His expression becomes rueful, his face distorting with a mix of regret and something else.

"No," he says somberly, shifting his gaze from the bar to her face. "It definitely wasn't one-sided. . . But I'm sorry if I left you to believe that."

Hearing the past tense out loud is less unpleasant than she would have expected. But then, it isn't as though any of this now comes as a surprise; she touched it all for herself when they were linked. His feelings for her, the attraction. Him constantly pushing all of it down in order to keep pace with a job he felt ill-prepared for.

And then, eventually, a new, more profound affection arising as he was pulled toward someone else. That feeling, too, being repeatedly dismissed and buried.

B'Elanna would be deceiving herself if she said that witnessing it in his mind, from start to finish, didn't hurt her in some measure. But in a different way, it released her, too. She no longer has to wonder what happened between them, or whether she simply imagined his initial reciprocation. She can finally let go of this anger she's been carrying for two years, the one directed inward as well as out.

She taps the bar with her fingers, her face scrunching up in thought.

"So much the better really," she comments. "I would have just been disappointed in the end."

Her tone is that of subtle challenge and mockery. The same one she used to use back in the days when they could still share meals or play brutal games of hover ball.

He sits back in his chair, willing to take the bait even though he knows he'll regret it in just a moment.

"Is that so?"

"Of course," she replies, shaking her head. "I mean that year after Sakari IV, you gained all that weight. And your hairline. . . Well, it's retreating like people fleeing from the mess hall on Neelix's tofu night."

He snorts. Deciding not to even bother feigning indignation.

"Tofu can be delicious," he suggests, adopting a suggestive tone long abandoned.

"I tend to agree actually. . . But then I don't want to take tofu home with me."

His rolls his eyes, but his frustrated look is belied by the smile spread across his lips. She simply smirks as she rises from her chair.

"You're leaving now that you've destroyed my ego?'

"I have faith it will recover. It's proven the most indomitable thing on the ship, these last six years."

"You know, Torres, entire words were invented to describe women like you."

"Oh?" she says, crossing her arms in a posture that normally sends even Joe Carey fleeing. "And what words would those be?"

He smiles, happy that after all this time she still takes the bait without knowing it.

"Amazing. Beautiful. Things like that."

She flushes and closes her eyes. Torn between her embarrassment at the compliments and her annoyance that he's doing this to deliberately fluster her.

"Fine," she says, waving as she turns away from him. "But let's see if you still think I'm all of that when I wipe the court with you in hover ball."

"You're on. When are we playing?"

"Tomorrow. 19:00. Mike needs a partner to play against Harry and I, and I can't think of anyone I'd rather humiliate than you."

He shakes his head again, but allows her to have the last word. Turning around in his seat, he smiles to himself and wonders if Harry's still as bad at hover ball as he used to be.

When he hears footsteps behind him just a minute later, he assumes it's B'Elanna, back for one reason or another.

"Forget an insult you'd still like to voice?"

There's a pause, a complete cessation of footsteps.

"No. . . just stopping in."

The gravelly voice surprises him. His head shoots up to see Janeway dressed in period clothes, her pinned back with a few wisps escaping to fall over her forehead.

As she approaches him slowly, he can see that the sun has kissed her cheeks a bit. It's one feature of the program the Doctor will no doubt yell at him for, but there's no way to explain to the hologram the desire to feel the sun on one's face, the warmth residing there even after one returns home for the evening.

"Have fun at the festival?"

It's a safe enough question, but still more than he's asked her in sometime. She slides into the same chair previously occupied by B'Elanna, appearing to contemplate his question with some seriousness.

"No," she responds finally. "I guess it wasn't really for me."

"Don't care for holidays celebrating obscure Irish Saints?"

She lets out a long breath, her hand trying to tame an escaping strand of hair.

"I don't know that I'm that big on holidays at all, to be honest. . . I think sometimes people dive into them with such zeal as an escape from their everyday lives."

He remains silent. Not sure what to say to this. Not sure if she's really saying what he thinks she's saying.

"But," she continues, cocking her head to the side, "after all is said and done, real life eventually intervenes. . . And as pleasant as an escape is, I've always found reality to be much more rewarding."

As she finishes her statement, she meets his eyes in a meaningful way, an ironic smile playing at her mouth.

It isn't a full confession, he realizes, but likely more than he's entitled to these days. After a moment, he smiles softly, sliding her his drink.

"To reality then," he pronounces, and she raises the scotch, downing the beverage in one elegant movement.

After this, they fall comfortably into quiet. A feeling both of them have missed more than each could or would ever articulate.

"I lied to Ransom," she admits at some point. Her eyes fixed on a whiskey bottle behind the bar.

"You did?"

"Before. . . everything started," she elaborates. "He and I were talking. . . And he asked me if I'd broken the Prime Directive since we've been out here. "

"And you said. . . ?"

"I told him I'd only bent it a few times. But never broken it."

It isn't the truth, even if they squint their eyes. But at this point, Kathryn is past the point of thinking of the Prime Directive as an infallible diving line. Tom isn't sure why it matters to her that she's actually broken it or else why she felt compelled to lie.

"Why didn't you answer honestly?" he asks, this time cautiously.

"I don't know," she breathes, shaking her head. "I think I was worried he wouldn't understand. Afraid of being judged."

He nods slowly, tracing his finger around the rim of the empty glass between them.

"I'm not going to tell you that we haven't made mistakes," he begins. And here her breath catches, grateful that he's still saying 'we.' "But I think for the most part, we should be proud. . . Not only of what we've accomplished, but of how we've gone about it."

It isn't the same pep talk he would given her six months ago, but she thinks it's more than she's entitled to these days.

She leans forward on the bar, resting her face in her hands as she turns her head to look at him.

"I'm so sorry, Tom."

It's not the first time she's apologized, but this time her eyes fill with tears. Even if he accepts it now, the cost of this has already been too high. And though neither one has wanted to calculate it, each of them continue to do so, lying awake at night in their beds.

"I know," he says eventually. "And I'm sorry . . . that I let it get this far."

She shakes her head slowly. She doesn't think any of this is his fault. Worries, too, that he's still blaming himself for things he shouldn't, in the wake of what happened with Alice.

"You don't need to be sorry," she says, putting weight behind her words.

He sits back in his chair, considering the empty glass once more.

"I don't know," he murmurs. "I had good reason to be angry at you. But I think the truth is that I was also angry about things that had nothing to do with the _Equinox_. . . There have been parts of my life that have gotten trampled under the weight of my duties and I think. . . I think I was partly angry at myself for letting them slip away."

She looks at him softly, the guilt she's long entertained now flaming up before her again.

"I know you never wanted this."

It's only the third time she's said this to him, but it feels like the thousandth. Because it's a thought that's been with her since the first year of their journey, asserting itself again and again over the years, and each time with more force. The pull of it finally becoming overwhelming for her after their encounter with the telepathic pitcher plant, Tom having bounded into her ready room to announce that an old friend had offered him a test piloting job on Earth. The heavy cloud that had clung to him after breaking orbit with the water planet finally lifting, if only temporarily.

After all these years, she realized, he still wanted to be flying.

"No," he responds finally, "I didn't. And for a long time I would have given it all back if conditions had been right." He stops, collecting his thoughts. His face more open than she's seen in a long time. "But. . . I realized after the _Equinox_ that I wouldn't give it up anymore. That I wasn't the same person I was when this all began."

She looks at him cautiously, her doubt betrayed by the lines forming on her brow.

"Duty and desire aren't the same thing," she cautions.

Her stoic statement made more somber by the knowledge, clear if unspoken between them, that she knows this distinction better than anyone else.

"True," he breathes. "But I've realized after a lot of thinking these last six months that all of this is important to me. That I now desire the duty. Even if it's had to come with some sacrifices along the way."

She doesn't respond to this. Still not sure whether the feelings he's expressing really match up with the truth. Whether what he's saying now is akin to the times when she reminds herself, repeatedly and often when standing in her sonic shower, that she wanted to command her own ship. Even if she never anticipated it would be on the other side of the galaxy, without Starfleet support, and with a burden that's often so crushing that she can physically feel it pushing down on her in the privacy of her bathroom.

Her thoughts are broken by the sound of a stifled chuckle beside her. When she looks over at Tom, his head is buried in his hands, his shoulders slightly shaking.

"What?" she asks, curious as to the abrupt shift.

"I. . ." he begins, but he can't gather himself enough to finish.

"What?" Kathryn presses, this time with a smile beginning to form on her face. Tom's laughter has always had this effect on her.

He pulls himself up slightly, looking at her through one eye as he rubs his head with his hands, his amusement continuing if more controlled.

"I've become so starved for a romantic life. . . that I was seduced by an inanimate object."

His statement is dark. A sad testament to the sacrifices they've both made. But the way he voices it, his genuine amusement at the state of things, breaks through all of that.

She smiles more, beginning to chuckle as well.

"You think that's bad. . . I just went on a date with a hologram."

At this, he loses it entirely. Pulling up so hard in his chair that the wooden legs scrape and totter. And the sight of him undone by mirth, coupled with the nature of her own confession, pulls her over the edge as well.

They both collapse on the bar, laughing so hard they can barely breathe.

"Hardly the people the Academy should ask to give a lecture to cadets thinking of switching to the Command track," he comments, eventually wiping his eyes.

"You don't think we'd have something to impart?"

"Oh, I can see it now," he says, rolling his eyes. "A special command school seminar: Surviving Celibacy. With special lecturers Captain Kathryn Janeway and Lieutenant Commander Thomas Paris."

She snorts, further amused by the image. Especially as it's one she can see all too clearly.

"I don't think your father would approve."

She hesitates after she says it, looking at him to gauge his reaction. Even in the best of times between them, his father has been a subject that's largely off-limits.

"Well," he drawls, his mood unchanged. "I don't particularly care if he doesn't. After all, this is all his fault. He's the one who got you to switch to the command track."

The joke appears to her to be just that. There's no bitterness or apparent pain.

She smirks, allowing herself to fall back into the ease of their banter.

"Remind me to write him a thank you note when we get home," she remarks darkly.

"Maybe we can glue his desk to the ceiling?" he offers, as though imparting a secret.

"Or reprogram his replicator with Neelix's recipes."

"Fill that huge fish tank in his office with pudding."

As people pour in from the recently finished festival, she sniggers at his last suggestion, taking a second to come up with even more ways to torture her former mentor.

Crewmembers beginning to stare, some more discretely than others, at the two members of the command team sitting together at the bar. Their voices low between peels of laughter, and the giddy flush spreading across their faces resembling that of children upon discovering the art of dirty jokes.


	7. Of things near and distant

**Chapter 7: Of things near and distant  
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Sitting in his quarters, Tom finds his examination of the motionless starscape broken by Amelia's impatient movements.

He tries to call the dog to him, patting the cushion beside him as he issues the command for her to sit. But she only looks at him with pleading eyes before stubbornly resuming her pace in front of the door that has been programmed not to respond to her movements.

Tom lets out a sigh as he watches the creature. He knows that he should take her where she wants to go, the chore having been forestalled all evening. It being one that would require far more energy than the three-deck lift ride to Kathryn's quarters.

Hearing Amelia let out another low whine, he tries to summon the will to rise from the couch. And failing yet again to do so, Tom casts his gaze once more upon the system he fears some of them will never really leave behind.

. . . . .

"_I'm sorry, do I know you?" Kathryn asks him hesitantly. The man beside her now looming protectively closer as Tom takes a step toward her. _

"_I'm a friend," he replies vaguely. Dismissing the urge to introduce himself and, with it, the irrational conviction that the mere mention of his name should magically beckon forth her blocked memories. _

"_We've never met," she says flatly, and crossing her arms in accusation. _

"_We have," he counters softly. "In fact, you know me well."_

_At this, Kathryn's companion steps forward. His tall form- even taller than Tom's- now looming between them. Not angry. Not yet. But defensive; vigilant. _

"_Perhaps you've confused her for someone else," the man offers, his voice cordial but his expression bearing a clear warning. "As she just said- quietly clear- she doesn't know you, Mister. . . ?"_

"_Paris," he offers immediately, and searching Kathryn's face for any trace of recognition. "Tom Paris."_

_The older man looks behind him to Kathryn, who in turn offers only a bewildered shrug. _

"_As I said," the man continues, softening a bit as he seems to sense Tom's subtle deflation, "perhaps you're thinking of someone else."_

_His mind filling with rapidly altering strategies, Paris nods slowly as he begins to turn away. But before he does so, he stops, remembering the item under his arm. _

"_Maybe," Tom says, affecting a smile, though conflicted. "Or maybe not." He pulls the book from under his arm, handing it to the companion-turned-security detail with a nod in Kathryn's direction. _

_The man takes it, and turning it around a few times, hands it to Kathryn with an expression Tom doesn't see. _

"_I gave it to a friend once," Tom explains, "when I was worried she might get lonely. I hope you'll find in its pages the companionship she once did."_

_He watches as Kathryn looks at the book with masked interest, but nothing else. And feeling a pain crystallize in his abdomen, Tom turns from the twosome, stealing his way down the Quarren streets to contact _Voyager_. _

. . . . .

There is a stack of PADDS on her coffee table. All requiring her immediate attention. But unlike any other night on board her ship, Kathryn doesn't even go through the motions of pretending to work.

This apparent disinterest frightens her a little. And staring out at the stagnant expanse of space beyond her window, she hopes this detachment will fade soon, shifting back to her normal determination. The thought occurring to her that the word 'determination' is just a euphemism for 'tunnel vision' (or else worse), her breath catches in her chest and she becomes dimly aware of the dull ache forming in her neck.

Trying to compose herself, she considers taking a sonic shower. Or maybe even a bath. Without Amelia in her quarters, she could actually get through the latter without interruption for a change.

Casting a lingering look at a collection of the dog's toys on the other side of the room, she gives herself a mental reprimand for having put off fetching Amelia earlier. Seeing her dog's current caretaker isn't going to get any easier tomorrow, and now that it's well past 23:00, all her procrastination has accomplished is a night of sleeping in a bed devoid of even a pet's warmth.

Rubbing her face, she sits up on the couch. And reaching for one of the reports she doesn't want to read, she freezes upon seeing the volume of Joyce at the far end of the coffee table. After a moment's pause, she picks up the book delicately.

She doesn't open it, allowing herself to feel the familiar weight of it in her hands; runs a finger along a crease in the book's spine before peering intently at the bound pages, their edges worn down or dog-eared from years of use.

After minutes of contemplating it, she finally cracks the cover, allowing herself to skim the first page of a story she's read a hundred times.

. . . . .

_Standing in the living room, she turns the book over in her hands. Books are a rare commodity here, and if nothing else, she'll get a bit of leisure reading out of her strange experience. _

"_You alright?" Jaffen murmurs softly, nuzzling her ear. _

"_Fine," she replies. Realizing her distracted tone isn't really all that convincing. _

"_Are you thinking about that strange man from this afternoon?" he asks, his arms settling around her waist. _

_Feeling his chin settle against her cheek, she closes her eyes and gives a shallow nod. _

"_Crazy or not, he was handsome," Jaffen teases, likely trying to lighten her contemplative mood. "Maybe I should worry about this youthful, book-bearing stranger?"_

_Something about the remark stirs a phantom of something in her, though for the life of her she doesn't know what. And against her tightly closed eyelids, the image of the man from earlier- his blue eyes filled with such sadness- flares up before her. _

_Know him? Surely not. But embraced by the arms of a man she loves, she can't help but think it impossible that she (or any woman) would ever forget those blue eyes after seeing them even once. _

_It's hours later that she wakes with a start in bed. She doesn't move for fear of waking the man whose limbs are tangled up with her own, but lying against her lover's chest, her mind tries to piece together the images and sounds of the dream that woke her. _

_A lab- perhaps a medical facility of some kind? The image of blue blanket with something moving under it. The glimpse of red fur and something else- a wagging tail. And then voices. Her own voice. Agitated. Torn. _

"_Tom, this isn't a position I revel being in. We can't exactly allow every crewmember to have a pet."_

"_You aren't 'every crewmember'. You're the Captain. And besides, I may have done some unofficial surveys of the crew on the matter. You know, as per my duties as XO."_

_The clarity of the second voice- the voice of the man from that afternoon- surprises her. So, too, does the accompanying image of his mirth-filled eyes. A kind of lightness that seems contagious, even familiar, radiating from their blue depths. _

"_Perhaps I should let the two of you discuss this." _

_The disembodied voice is male; dry to the point of courting haughtiness. Her own frustration apparently compounded by this third-party's implied commentary on the exchange._

"_Tom. . ."_

"_Come on, Kath. Tell me you don't love those little puppy paws and tail. Or those pleading eyes."_

"_Pleading eyes aren't something I consider a strength. Annoying, maybe. Like when they belong to a certain First Officer."_

_Sinking heavier into Jaffen's now familiar warmth, the sound of her own voice- the sarcastic retort so obviously for show- rings in her ears. _

_Sighing, she pushes the dream away. Reminding herself that the fair-haired man she met earlier was mistaken. Or simply crazed. _

. . . . .

The path that Tom takes to make his way to deck three could only be more circuitous if he took the Jeffries tubes instead of the turbolift.

He allows Amelia to stop wherever she wants, sniffing a bulkhead or piece of deck plate she has sniffed dozens of times before. The only time he prods her a long is when she seems a bit _too interested _in one particular bulkhead, but she moves along quickly when he fixes her with a steady glare that accompanies a clipped command.

They are twenty minutes into their journey, and only halfway to Kathryn's quarters, when they pass by Mike Ayala in a back section of corridor.

It will never cease to amaze Tom how quickly the serious security officer reverts to boyish joy when encountering the Captain's dog. And though Ayala is hardly the only member of the crew to have this particular habit, Tom still smiles when he sees Mike immediately stop and crouch down to play with the animal.

"How are you?" Mike asks, with comical earnestness, as he peers into the dog's brown eyes and rubs her ears.

"Oh, I'm fine," Tom breezes, pretending (per a long-standing habit) that Mike's address was to him.

The security officer chuckles, casting his gaze upward to Amelia's present chaperone. It's only because of the training of his position that the smile doesn't slide from the officer's face at seeing the XO's drawn features.

The reclamation of the ship and rescue of crew on Quarra has taken it out of fairer man, once more thrusting him into the chair normally occupied by Janeway. And though Mike has witnessed the steady arc of the naturalness with which Tom claims that chair in times of necessity and crisis, he can't help but think that this last time there was a sense of unease that clung to Tom. And of a kind altogether different from that of Paris' younger days as XO.

Setting aside the memory of Tom's haunted expression only a few days earlier on the bridge, he shoots the Lieutenant Commander a full smile that produces dimples in his bronze cheeks.

"Out for a stroll?" Mike asks, continuing their easy banter.

"Returning Amelia here to the Captain's care," Tom says, adopting the same light tone.

"Ah," Mike comments, rising from to his feet. "Well, I'll let you get to it then. I need to turn in anyway. . . I've decided I want to practice my next recording for home. Think my last one for my family didn't really say everything I wanted to. "

At this, Tom stops short. He's been so distracted with the month's events he'd entirely forgotten the next round of transmissions to the Alpha Quadrant was coming up. He spares the man across from him an appraising look, knowing how much the contact with home has meant to him. And how disappointed he'd been when his young sons seemed uncomfortable with the man they know as their father, but whom they haven't seen in seven years.

"How's it going?"

Tom poses the question carefully. Mike is a straight shooter, but also deeply private. He only reveals what he wants to reveal- and when he wants to reveal it.

It's a trait, Tom realizes, that most of the senior officers share.

"Difficult," Mike allows, casting his eyes one more to Amelia's expectant face. "I've wanted so much to get home to them that I didn't think about all the things they wouldn't remember. My oldest was only six when I left. . ."

Taking note of the officer's muted sadness, Tom fills with a new sympathy. And a long-familiar sense of responsibility.

"We're going to get home, Mike. . . It won't be easy when we do. For any of us. But I have faith that the people we left behind haven't forgotten how much we love them."

Tom voices the assurance sincerely and confidently. And after a few beats, Mike reaches down to pet Amelia's head once more, favoring Paris with a cryptic smile as he does so.

"You're right," Mike nods. "I know you are. . . After all, you never really forget anyone you've loved."

Turning away from the XO with the same mysterious smile in place, Mike nods his goodbye to dog and walker. Tom's eyes- at once questioning and contemplative- trailing the retreating the man down the corridor.

. . . . .

Kathryn isn't even close to sleeping when her door chimes. Still, she's in her bed, staring at the far wall of her bedroom and willing her mind to rest.

She's so relieved by the interruption that she doesn't hesitate to throw the blankets off and pull on a robe, calling for lights as she makes her way to the living area.

When the door parts and Tom sees her clad in her nightgown, he's somehow surprised by the idea that she was in bed.

"I'm sorry," he immediately offers. "I didn't think of the time. . . I just thought you might be missing-"

His stilted explanation is interrupted by Amelia bounding forward to Kathryn, who greets the dog with a wide smile, even when her pet breaks her training, leaning on her owner with her front paws.

"Hi, baby," Kathryn says. Surprised by the strength of the emotions welling within her.

She blinks away the tears that have formed in her eyes. Trying as well to push away the thoughts of other homecomings with another bounding Irish Setter. The thought of the last homecoming that never happened; another patiently waiting man, but one to whom she never returned.

"Thanks for bringing her by," she manages, when she's recovered enough to be confident her voice won't break.

"No problem," Tom says with a nervous smile, and backing slightly toward the door. "I should go. Let you rest now. . ."

She doesn't dismiss the comment or else invite him to stay. But still, he finds himself not continuing his journey to the door. Rooted to the deck by her being so close to him again. Pulled to her, with unconscious concern, by the waves of sadness and confusion she's throwing off.

She feels a mix of relief and unease at his continued presence. And as Amelia finally calms down, Kathryn straightens up, smoothing her robe as a distraction from the silence that stretches in the room.

"Interested in a cup of coffee?" she asks. Her tone casual, almost natural.

"Coffee at this hour?" he says, arching an eyebrow. "Then you'll never sleep."

She opens her mouth to say that she was already unable to sleep, but closes it when she decides the admission more revealing than she would like. So instead she stands awkwardly before him, continuing to fuss with her already straightened robe.

"I should go," he says again, this time deflated if resolute as he turns toward the door.

She can't explain it, but something in her breaks at the sight. Perhaps because it reminds her of him looking at her with the same deflation days earlier, and with a similar sadness filling his eyes.

"Tom," she says reflexively. "Wait. Stay. . . Please."

When he turns around again, his face is completely open. And the unmasked pain there- the idea that somehow, even through mind control, she could forget this man- pries loose her own façade. They stand staring at each other; this breathing, growing thing that has long pulsed between finally being laid bare, however wordlessly.

If it were a story or holodeck fantasy, they would rush into each other's arms, declaring love amidst a display of passion. But the limits of real life mean the duties and barriers that have governed them don't suddenly fall away here, remaining firmly place, even if with acute pain now.

Her eyes filled with tears she can no longer hide, Kathryn stretches out her hand and clears her throat.

"Sit with me for a while?"

The fear on her face when she asks it- her open worry that he might reject her company- is enough to rob him of breath. He takes her hand quickly and firmly, squeezing it as she leads him to the sitting area.

Once they settle on the couch, Amelia immediately stretching across both of them, Kathryn inclines her head until it barely rests on Tom's shoulder.

"It might not have been home, but it felt like it," she confesses eventually. "I don't know that I would have ever left if you hadn't come for me."

He doesn't ask her if she wishes he hadn't come, spiriting her back to her life of duty and sacrifice. He won't force her to lie to him, denying her desire to shed the burdens of command and the accompanying loneliness.

Instead he rests his head against hers, covering her hand with his own. Her loss of a love, one that was real if built on illusions, juxtaposed by their own painfully concrete self-denial.

Sucking in a deep breath, Tom wishes, if only with a small part of himself, that he could have allowed her to go on living that quiet, contented life on Quarra. Thinks it cruel, and perhaps even a bit selfish, that he ripped her from it.

"Tell me about him," he says, resting his cheek against her temple when she shifts her head.

She remains silent. Attempting to strain the depth of sincerity in his offer, Tom surmises. Likely also trying to gauge her own strength and its ability to withstand such a confession.

"I think he's better left there. . ." she whispers, a small lilt to her voice.

Tom's mouth tugs upward. A cryptic smile she can feel against her own face, though she can't begin to guess what it means.

"You never forget someone you've loved," he says, his voice surprisingly even to his own ears. "Tell me about him. . ."

Their backs to the stars that have slowly begun to move behind them, Kathryn squeezes Tom's hand tighter as she begins to speak.


	8. The funny thing about time

**Chapter 8: The funny thing about time **

They sit together on the same couch they've occupied for seven years, Janeway contemplating her coffee while Paris watches her do so. When she adds a bit of sugar, he approximates her degree of turmoil. One lump is like B'Elanna craving banana pancakes. Two means she's holding it together with bloody fingernails.

She dissolves the second lump with a slow stir of her spoon, and he purses his lips, waiting. He can't be the one to break the silence. Not on this.

"I don't trust her," she says eventually, and still regarding her mug.

Tom's expression shifts only a little here. But by this stage, 'a little' is more than enough of a clue for either of them to read the other.

"You do," Kathryn ventures, meeting his gaze straight on.

"Yes," he replies simply.

"She's misled us already," she counters, a slight edge creeping into her voice. "Why would believe she isn't doing so still?"

"Because she's you."

"_She isn't me_." Her back goes rigid with anger as she voices the declaration, her eyes aflame with challenge and something else.

Whether she's too close to see it or else terrified because she does, Tom doesn't know. But either way, he doesn't voice the thought that Admiral Janeway _is _her, in any number of ways. The stubbornness. The forgoing of other peoples' feelings. The telltale signs of cynicism and darkness that have been but foreshadowed in the first seven years of their journey, brought to full maturity in the older Janeway by two and half decades of burden and stress; another ten years to mull over the losses she and her crew racked up on the long way home.

Tom averts his eyes away from Kathryn, unable to bear the full pain of this last thought.

"So what do we do?" he asks, focusing on the contents of his own mug.

"I don't know."

He's struck by the rarity of her admission. So much so that he doesn't even crack a joke to lighten her mood. He sets down his mug on the table in front of them, proceeding afterward to stretch out with his hands behind his head.

It's a posture his father would call 'inappropriate' and one Kathryn herself would have glared at him for, back when this all began. At present, she simply watches him, taking comfort in his natural ease, even in the midst of the most stressful circumstances.

"You once told B'Elanna to have a little faith," he comments. "Maybe you should heed that advice yourself."

When their eyes meet, Kathryn's are brimming with reservations, and something about the sight calls forth in Tom the memory of a brief exchange years earlier; the echo of a profound feeling of inadequacy and fear.

_Do you think. . . there will ever be a day when I'm assuring you instead of the other way around?_

That fledgling First Officer is light years behind him. But even as he looks back at Kathryn with his blue eyes full of hope, he carries the fear that his optimism has never been quite enough to lift her misgivings.

. . . . .

"Everything's ready," Tom announces, clicking off the shuttle's panel.

"Thank you, Commander." Admiral Janeway voices the reply with a curt nod, but doesn't meet his eyes. A continuation of the carpet avoidance of any conversation with him since her shuttle appeared off _Voyager's _port bow.

"Are you sure about this?" Tom asks, giving her one last chance to pull out before he gives her the hypo, and even though he knows she won't.

"Quite," she answers, a clear note of 'dismissed' in her voice.

He touches her arm, forcing eye contact, as he scans her face for all the signs he's seen traces of in the last few days. She hides her discomfort well, though not as well as her younger self. Given the extra years she's had to practice concealment, Tom takes this is a further confirmation of what he already suspects.

After a few moments, he wordlessly presses the hypo to her neck instead of simply leaving it for her. Admiral Janeway closes her eyes at the contact, her pulse quickening under his index finger when he doesn't draw away.

"I'm dead in your timeline."

Her eyes fly open at his statement (for it is a statement, not a question). And despite her surprise, she realizes there's no trace of fear or pain on his face when he voices the thesis.

After almost two decades without him, she's forgotten how easily he could read her. He must have guessed the nature of her discomfort with him sometime earlier.

She lets go of a deep breath.

"Yes."

"And you told her- Kathryn- about my. . . your Tom's death?"

_Your Tom_. The two words stab at the Admiral like a bat'leth even as Tom's eyes become dark and disapproving. But even then, there's an absence of anger about him; a kind of unconditional acceptance that she's dearly missed.

"I told your Captain. . . a great deal of things. Most of which she would have preferred not to know."

Here Tom shakes his head and looks away. He'd wondered where Kathryn's shift in attitude had come from since their conversation in her ready room, and now he knows for sure.

"You shouldn't have," he says, the Admiral's face immediately becoming resolved if impassive in response.

"She needed to know the consequences of her decisions."

Tom shakes his head again, but doesn't verbalize a response this time. Keeping to himself the worry that Kathryn will now torture herself with the decisions she made- even in a future that might not happen.

When he looks back at his companion, her face has softened and her eyes are shining. Seeing Tom this consumed with emotion for her younger self is overwhelming. Which is precisely why she has tried to stay clear of him until now.

When Tom takes her hand, she lets go of a ragged breath. It's one that's meant to steady her, but it fails, the hardened mask she's worn slipping away to reveal her pain and loss; an old longing that becomes open, and only for the second time.

"He loved you."

The aged woman seems torn between the joy of the assertion she's never heard voiced, and the pain of the very same. She tries, unsuccessfully, to pull her hand away after Tom speaks it.

"He loved you," he says again, this times vehemently. The Admiral's eyes begin to slowly shed tears they haven't parted with in years.

"He loved you," he says one final time, and closing the proximity between them to rest his forehead against hers.

"I know," she replies, the sound coming out as something between a whisper and sob.

The scent of him in her nostrils is overwhelming, the tears that continue spilling down her cheeks hot and burning. In the back of her mind, she thinks it fitting that her last pleasant sensations are of this man. And simultaneously she decides that this is more torturous than even the waiting fate of painful assimilation.

But even as the shuttle's console blinks and blinks in front of them, a time and battle-hardened Kathryn Janeway allows herself to give in completely to the proffered warmth of Tom Paris.

. . . . .

In front of Kathryn, the fireplace in her mother's living room pops and crackles.

She's on the couch, buried under a thick blanket. And even though she keeps her eyes on the glowing fire, she knows she's being watched.

"I'll got to bed soon, Pheebs," Kathryn murmurs, and knowing that her sister can tell it's a lie. The same one she's been telling her for four decades now.

Phoebe lets out a long sigh. She and her mother are both worried about Kathryn, but there's only so far either of them will push. . . At least when it comes to her sleeping habits.

"Just try to be in bed before mom gets up at five. If she catches you still awake, I'll never hear the end of it."

Kathryn smiles. Glad that even if so much on Earth has changed, her younger sister is the same; opinionated, meddling, and strong-willed to the point of driving Kathryn insane.

"Night, Pheebs. Love you."

"Love you, too."

As Phoebe turns to go up the stairs, Amelia, who has been sitting patiently at Kathryn's feet, follows the younger Janeway sister to bed. The dog prefers sleeping with Kathryn above anyone else, but all things considered, she values her rest above her preferred companionship. After three straight nights up shooting up in bed because she couldn't hear the hum of a ship that now sits in dry dock, Kathryn can't quite blame Amelia's choice.

When Phoebe and Amelia both leave her, Kathryn tries to devote her attentions to the copy of the _Divine Comedy _in her lap. After less than half an hour, she's made little progress, her mind occupied, as it has been for the last seven days, by the sketch of a future she'd never imagined. A looming fear she'd tried to think about, now brought to life by her own voice.

"_In five years, Tom dies on an away mission," the Admiral shouts, as Kathryn turns away from her in the corridor. _

_Kathryn freezes instantly, not turning around to face her older self, but listening. Listening intently. _

"_He's killed during a trade negotiation. . . It takes four hours to get back to _Voyager_. By that time, it's only to bring his lifeless body back to his wife. . . B'Elanna, their daughter Miral, they never recover from the loss."_

Resting in the house she grew up in- having made it back to the relative safety of the planet it took her alternate self countless more sacrifices to reach- the tranquility of her homecoming is jarred by images that have assailed her even as Tom took the conn, piloting _Voyager_ to McKinley Station as her hand shook ever so slightly on his shoulder.

_His wife. B'Elanna. Their daughter Miral._

The idea that in only five years time Tom could have married B'Elanna and fathered a child took Kathryn completely off guard, wounding her almost as profoundly as the news of his death.

In the days that have ticked by since, after the heralded homecoming and being released by Starfleet for three weeks with the promise of long debriefings to come, she has turned the idea of Tom's marriage over and over again in her mind. And by now, she thinks she's a fool to have been surprised.

How long did she expect Tom to wait, and for a woman who, in the end, has no claim on him? And marrying B'Elanna. An attraction has long simmered between Tom and the engineer, their rediscovered friendship likely being the first step toward Tom being willing to start a relationship.

How had she not wondered these last months (as she had years earlier) when Tom announced he had plans with B'Elanna in the holodeck, or the pair's sharp banter added levity to an otherwise dry meeting? Was it lack of observation, wishful thinking, or simply the misguided belief that Tom would continue to sink himself into the same loneliness his friend and Captain had chosen?

Kathryn throws her book across the couch, it landing with a heavy thud that perfectly satisfies her mood. Whenever she sees Tom and B'Elanna, she chides herself, she will not be petulant or anything less than completely supportive. But here, at this moment, she will allow herself the full force of her disappointment.

When she hears the thud of footsteps on the front porch, she's long-since stretched out on the couch, now rushing to sit up at the sound. The door opens and closes with a low thud, the floorboards of the housing creaking in all the usual places as whoever it is taps something into the computer panel next to the front door.

Kathryn has just finished considering her methods of defense, if necessary, when a familiar voice rings out from the entryway.

"Kath?" Tom calls, "I'm sorry I'm late. Damn transport operator said he couldn't land in more than a meter of snow." A pause, filled with the sound of a satchel hitting the ground with force. "I mean it's _Indiana_. Does he expect to hold transports until April?"

Everything about this, from his arrival to the casual way he's strolling in, throws her off completely.

"Late?" she manages. Mentally kicking herself for her acute concern over the state of her hair, even as she straightens her nightgown and robe.

"Told Phoebe I'd be in four hours earlier." He adds, appearing in the living room with a spreading smirk, "to which she informed me that your Mom said 'dinner is held for no one, regardless of rank or age.' "

He plops down on the couch beside her after he finishes shrugging of his outer garments. Large snowflakes, already melting, cling to his hair and pants. As he slides into the blanket next to her, a large drop of ice cold water descends down his cheek, landing on Kathryn's bare foot. When she jumps with a reflexive start, he looks at the appendage apologetically.

"Sorry," he says, automatically moving to rub her skin.

His hands don't help the chill since they're like ice from being outside. Still, the feel of his freezing fingers on her warm skin isn't the most unpleasant sensation of those competing for Kathryn's attentions, his words a moment earlier finally sinking in.

"You talked to Phoebe?" she asks, hesitantly pulling her foot away from his reach.

"Two days ago. When I was in Marin with my father."

As Kathryn inwardly curses her sister, Tom spreads out on the couch, beginning to tug at the blanket Kathryn is currently monopolizing.

She looks at him quizzically, her reservations and discomfort quickly giving way to curiosity. He's upbeat, a carefree (and even youthful?) air about him.

Perhaps it's being home with loved ones, or else shedding the burdens of the Delta Quadrant. Perhaps it's even B'Elanna.

Even the pain of the last possibility doesn't extinguish the happiness she feels at seeing him like this. And after a few moments of watching his ear-to-ear smile, she forgets her torment from minutes earlier.

"How was your time with your father?" she asks, leaning her head to rest on her hand.

"It went well," he says, his toothy grin being usurped by a more serene expression. "I think. . . He's still going to have some ideas about my career that I won't appreciate it, but we'll deal with that in time."

"He's proud of you," she says, smiling now. "Give him a little space to imagine his son's bright future."

"I will," he allows tentatively. "But at some point I'm going to have to break it to him that I'm not looking to make Captain, or Admiral, or. . . President of the Federation."

Despite the levity he voices the statement with, Kathryn sees through to the real worry and fear behind it. But whether those things are about not falling into the same pattern with his father's expectations, or the more general desire to avoid being dragged back into a command position again, Kathryn doesn't know. Maybe part of her doesn't want to.

"What's the matter," she begins, forcing the same light tone, "don't want to have your own ship someday? And here I thought you liked bossing people around."

He leans back on the couch with a mischievous expression that makes him look like the young man she met seven years earlier.

"I liked being on _your ship _just fine. Wouldn't know what to do if I sat on a command deck without you barking orders next to me. And at me."

She scowls at the word 'barking', but before she can voice a serious response as to his command potential, he's deliberately moving on.

"Speaking of commands. . . _Tell me _you're not going to take that blasted promotion!"

She isn't surprised, given his family connections, that he's heard about Command's yet-to-be announced plans to make her a Vice -admiral. But she is taken back by how freely he voices his opinion of it.

"It's a good opportunity. . . I'd get to focus on rebuilding the Fleet, making progress with the Romulans."

"You'd be behind _a desk_."

Her normal dispositions finally catching up to her after the shock at having Tom turn up (quite literally) at her front door, Kathryn folds her arms and raises an eyebrow.

"It's my duty as a Starfleet officer to go where I'm needed, do what I can for the Federation. Can you really tell me that you would turn your back on the same kind of request?'

He contemplates his reply for a moment, his leg brushing hers as he shifts under the blanket.

"I don't know," he says finally. "But I'd like to think that after seven years of sacrificing my personal life out of necessity, I would realize that my own wants and needs deserve equal consideration." He continues, adopting the same eyebrow arch she used on him only moments earlier, "and a wise woman once told me that duty and desire aren't the same thing."

Kathryn inwardly cringes. Not only is he using her own words against her, but he's saying exactly what her mother and sister have been telling her, however artfully, since she arrived in Bloomington.

"Back to Tom Paris," she says, deciding she doesn't know how to continue their last topic. "If you don't want to continue on the command track, does that mean you want to go back to flying?"

"Maybe," he shrugs. "But I kind of doubt it."

"So if not command, and not flying, what then? Going to follow up on those medic courses the Doctor was always threatening you with during cross-training?"

The joke succeeds at making him pull a face, but after her chuckle subsides, she looks at him intently. He realizes that she's dead set on getting some kind of answer out of him as to his professional intentions.

"Kath," he says, a bit bemused. "I really don't know. And to tell you the truth, I don't want to think about it yet. All that stuff. . . It'll keep. Right now, I just want to be around the people I love and enjoy my life."

At this, the expression fades from her face completely, and he thinks maybe he's overstepped a boundary she wasn't ready to have crossed yet.

"How's B'Elanna?" she asks stiffly.

He seems momentarily confused at the change of topic, but he knows how worried she is about the crew adjusting. And B'Elanna's family relationships have been as strained as his in the past.

"Fine, I think."

"You think?" she asks cryptically, and he looks back at her with renewed puzzlement.

"I haven't talked to her since she went to stay with her father," he admits, and realizing he should probably give his friend a call. "Oh, but I did talk to Harry this morning. He's already putting in a request for a deep space assignment when our leave period ends. Can you believe that kid?"

When he changes the subject, the thought occurs to her that maybe he's not ready to openly discuss his relationship yet. Still, she thinks if he's tip-toeing around it, it's likely for her benefit, and this she simply can't bear.

"Has B'Elanna decided if she's going to keep her commission yet?" she asks suddenly.

"I don't know," he says with a small gesture. "I would like to think so. . . given the opportunities it will give her. But I think that's her choice in the end."

"Her choice," she agrees, "but it's going effect you. If she turns down that commission, it may be difficult for her to go wherever you're stationed."

Her last statement throws Tom off completely. He realizes that he must be missing something.

"What do you mean 'go wherever I'm stationed'?"

She gives him a muted glare, her frustration beginning to mount that he's treating her like a child.

"I assume you two will want to be near each other given that you're dating."

His only reply at first is an open mouth and disbelieving eyes.

"I'm not dating B'Elanna," he says finally.

The flat denial makes Kathryn's buzzing brain snap to attention. Tom's never lied to her before, and she can't imagine him doing so now, even about this.

"You're not?" she asks after a beat, and feeling an embarrassed flush beginning to form on her cheeks.

"No," he replies, and looking as though he's caught her in something. Or maybe just beaten her at pool. "Can honestly say the thought hasn't even crossed my mind."

She tries to find another topic of conversation, and quickly, but her mind is bogged down with too many sudden emotions. Embarrassment. Relief. Fear.

More than anything, fear.

"Would it matter to you if I had been dating her?" he asks, taking her hand.

"Of course," she responds, in a very small voice. "I want you to be happy. . . You know that."

"So your concern for me is just. . . friendly?"

The open question in his eyes scares her more than his verbal one. She pulls her hand away again, trying to find a way to answer him.

Watching her wrestle with it, Tom realizes that as much as she's yearned to shed the burdens of her Captaincy, she's also gotten used to hiding behind them. And despite his time as an XO, Tom's pilot instincts about when to change his approach vector are still pretty sharp.

"You know," he begins, before she can cobble together a polite and appropriate response. "when you first made me your First Officer, I was terrified of failing. Scared of being the fuck up again, the failure. Letting everyone down the way I did my father."

"But you didn't," she says instinctively.

"I know," he smiles briefly, "but the important thing was the way I felt about myself. Being trapped under all those insecurities and fears. . . It was a solid year before I started to really crawl out from under that. Learned to fill that role with the fullness it deserved."

"You didn't really have a choice," she sighs. "There was a lot of pressure on you."

"No," he admits, "it some ways that's true. And I guess that's the part I let myself get lost in. You know, the idea of being responsible for one hundred and fifty people. Their safety. Their happiness."

She looks at him apologetically. But isn't an apology he wants. In truth, he wouldn't really change all that much even if he could.

He's sure she would never believe this last part, and so doesn't think to voice it to her, Kathryn being a person who is driven by the future largely because she thinks it's the one thing she can still change.

"But," he continues, "now all that pressure and responsibility has finally lifted. And as much as it changed me for better as a person, I know that it's no longer what I want to define my life by."

She looks at him thoughtfully for a while, understanding his sentiment. Envying it all a bit too.

"And so now that the burden has lifted?" she asks finally. "What gives it all meaning . . . without that sacrifice?"

He tugs on her hand that he apparently started holding again, though when she isn't sure. And as a smile spreads across his face, the same mix of relief and fear floods her again.

"This," he answers, squeezing her fingers. "Us. . . You."

It's a declaration of love, though one that could easily be treated as one of friendship. Another opportunity that could escape her, only to be examined much later, and with unflinching scrutiny, when she reflects back on it.

Because that's the funny thing about the present; it has the strange ability to seem as unchangeable as the past- right up to moment when it actually slips away.

Rising up on the couch and leaning forward, Kathryn presses her mouth to Tom's until his lips part against hers.


End file.
